Ask Jack: We All Need Somebody to Saleen On

Chalk one up for the Widow Douglas — or maybe for Aunt Sally. Both of them tried to “sivilize” Huck Finn. His response was to “light out for the Territory,” which was the wildest and least “sivilized” place he figured he could reasonably reach.

How many boys read that book and nodded in sympathy at Huck’s desire to get away from the coddling and constraining arms of civilization? How many of them used it as a model and pattern for their lives, whether they ended up breaking the sound barrier or starving to death in an abandoned schoolbus? And for how long has our primary impulse as young men been to get out and experience life face to face, on our own terms?

Those days are mostly gone. Today’s young men are “sivilized” by default. If they have any desire to leave their mothers, it is just so they can move to a big city and experience life as part of a communal organism. Whatever desire they might have had for some sort of frontier has been ground out of them bit by painful bit until their default approach to the empty and unknown is a fearful one. A few weeks ago, I read a screed by a young man who was planning to quit his job because his employer was forcing him to ride in an unsafe vehicle. Remembering the thrice-wrecked, permanently dogtracking Plymouth Arrow stakebed conversion I drove for David Hobbs BMW in 1989, I eagerly scrolled down until I could get the details of the deathtrap in question: a 2017 Ford Fusion, which apparently did not receive top marks in some part of the Euro NCAP test.

This is not to say that every young man is afraid of his own shadow. There are still a few dudes out there who imagine themselves rolling towards the unknown in the coolest or hottest car they can (not quite) afford. Which brings us to this week’s episode of Ask Jack.

Jordan’s currently driving an SN95 Mustang with 203,000 miles on it, a bent unibody, a blown heater core, a salvage title, and an arm’s-length list of aftermarket performance parts. He’s been approved for not a penny over $25,000 in auto loan, and he wants something outrageous. In particular, he’s been looking at Saleen Mustangs built between 2005 and 2010. He’s not a track rat and he has no interest in the weekend drag races. He just wants a cool Mustang that he can use to drive around and meet girls. The fact that all the girls are at home watching Netflix and swiping on Tinder does not dismay him one bit. He has no interest in being sivilized.

One of our mutual friends suggested a 2011-era 5.0 Mustang with a few performance mods. That’s easily acquired and such a vehicle would have more real-world pace than any Saleen based on the 4.6-liter three-valve engine. Yet Jordan isn’t necessarily interested in the most speed for the buck. He wants the most outrageous Mustang he can get.

Generally, that means buying a spoilers-and-louver-panels special like a Saleen or a Roush. Between the two, I’d much rather have a Roush. My impression, which is perhaps unjustified, is that Roush builds a more durable, better-performing car for the same money. The problem is that much of the market has the same impression that I do and as a result the prices are a bit higher than they are for Saleens. I’ve seen a couple of the early “427R” conversions for $25k. So that would be my suggestion, if Jordan is dead set on maximum flash.

If he is not set on that — if he is willing to have a slightly lower profile in exchange for a much more capable vehicle — then I think the answer is blindingly obvious. The 2007 Shelby Mustang GT500 is more than a bunch of go-fast bits applied to a cooking-grade Mustang. It has a bespoke 32-valve 5.4-liter engine derived from the mighty Terminator Cobra of 2003 and 2004. The suspension tuning was done by SVT and the thing really handles in all circumstances. It runs low 12s out of the box and can reach high 11s with $500 worth of tuning components.

The “Shelby” name is a misnomer; at the time, Ford SVT personnel confirmed to me that 99 percent of the car was developed in-house. Mr. Shelby gave it his blessing and that was about it. It’s a bad-ass ride and it’s available all over the place for $25,000 in good condition.

The GT500 has just one Achilles’ heel: it’s heavy. Iron block heavy. Two tons heavy. Later on, Ford would cut weight and boost power with the 662-horsepower “Trinity” engine, thus creating an all-time legendary pony/muscle/sports car. Still, Jordan isn’t going to be stocking up brake pads for weekend runs around Thunderhill.

Get the GT500, Jordan. Put in some cutout pipes. Let it roar. Get your motor running. Head out to the highway. Ignore those Widow Douglases in HR and the Aunt Sallys on Bumble. Don’t let ’em sivilize you, my friend. You, and your Mustang, were born to be wild.