Our tester had quite a few...
Our tester had quite a few miles on her, but the black leather interior was holding up well. Shelby doesn't stray far from the factory Ford interior equipment, with just a few minor trim touches to let the occupants know this Mustang is something different.
MM&FF Editor Evan Smith put in a call to Shelby American, which put us in contact with the Hertz Public Affairs office. We booked the Shelby again, this time for four days, and things were quite different. We were wise enough to roll in with our utility bill, and our Shelby's contract was sitting atop the counter. The utility bill never made it out of our back pocket, though the same two Hertz employees who waited on us before once again took care of us.
One thing you'll want to make sure of should you decide to partake in the GT-H fun is that you look over the car very carefully. Good lighting isn't something readily available in a parking garage, so nitpick every detail when you perform the walk-around with the Hertz staff. (More on this later.) The walk-around runs off a component checklist, and the Hertz employees make sure all of the items on the list are on the car. When you return it, you'll perform another walk-around to verify all of the parts from Shelby and Ford Racing Performance Parts are there.
Each Shelby GT-H is serialized....
Each Shelby GT-H is serialized. Hopefully, Shelby is keeping track of the rental cars that have gotten cracked up by consumers.
A day later, we were at our local autocross where we entered the Shelby GT-H. The automatic killed some of the fun as it bogged the engine quite a bit in low-speed turns. We tried manual shifting, but it was a sloppy affair, with the transmission and driver often getting confused as to what gear to use and what gear the transmission was in.
Still, we were whole-heartedly impressed with the FRPP Handling Pac. The ride quality was top notch and body roll was kept to a minimum. Here is where turning off the traction control would have been helpful (of course, it's permanently engaged in the Shelby rentals). There were times when we needed the S197 Stang to pivot and drift around a turn, but we couldn't get the car to slide enough to run the course at full song. Not to mention it would have been cool to show off for all of the car nuts there with a little sideways action.
Our Sirius radio package had...
Our Sirius radio package had a mind of its own. We jammed out to Hair Nation until our first stop with the car. After that, we couldn't get it to work until days later on our way back to the airport.
The GT-H was consistently outperformed by a stock WRX and even a couple of mildly modified 5-liter Mustangs, until the end of the day when we realized where we were losing time to the aforementioned challengers. With that sector of the track addressed, the Shelby leapfrogged the three cars by a couple of seconds per lap, though it was still way behind the three turbocharged Mazda Miatas.
A manual gearbox would have no doubt dropped lap times, as would disengaging the traction control, and we're sure the fun factor would skyrocket as well. Hertz doesn't exactly want us or anyone else beating up on its cars, so you can forget the stick tranny. Nevertheless, we found the automatic gearbox to be quite pleasant at the dragstrip.
Of course, the MM&FF staff wouldn't rent a Shelby Mustang and not test its quarter-mile capabilities, so the day after the autocross, we assembled a band of Mustangs and dropped in on our local dragstrip for some fun.