Silverado27

I am not familiar with BOSS Mustangs. What is their significance to the history of the car??

Z28x

The best thing GM could do would be to price the Z28 at $39k. GT500 power at the Boss price.

ProudPony

Racing. Trans-Am. Fighting Camaro. Championships swapped annually.
Street cars that were race cars. Think 1969 Z/28 - the real one - and what that means to a Camaro guy.

The best Boss was never raced in Trans-Am with Factory backing - Boss 351 - because Ford pulled out in 1971.
That was the fastest, best-handling car direct from Ford until the 2003 Terminator Cobras. Boss 351 was faster than Boss 429, Boss 302, Mach 1's, and 428 CJ cars - hands down, and don't even think of putting a Boss 351 or 302 against any big block on a country backroad.

Boss 302 has roots in winning the Trans-Am series - and FAME.
Several teams used them - Prepped by Bud Moore, Carroll Shelby, and a few privateers.

The Boss is one of the few pony cars (Ford or otherwise) that actually EARNED it's reputation as opposed to 30 years of fish stories that make a decent car become a legend.

Bob Cosby

Z284ever

Yup. Most cars get their reputations from faux marketing BS. Very few cars earn their reputations the hard way - from the unforgiving crucible of organized road racing and the brutal battle to win championships. Boss and Z/28 are REAL legends for good reason.

Looks like Ford remembers that. Sadly, could be that GM has forgotten it.

super83Z

Oh its just another thread to rip on the 5th gen.

colin911

GM needs to hear it

super83Z

As has been stated many, many times by the same crew on here, GM is aware of the 5th gens issues and there is nothing they can do about it. Maybe I'm wrong and this thread will stay about the Boss, but I doubt that.

91_z28_4me

See that is the point people are disagreeing with. There IS something they can do about it: not make the same mistakes with the 6th gen. Don't just use what is there and available if it doesn't fit the purpose of the vehicle. They should be noticing that sweating the details makes vehicles successful and profitable (Malibu and CTS).

Z284ever

Really? Seems to me that Ford "gets" what a Boss is. Does GM "get" what a Z/28 is?

BTW, I don't think it's possible to have a thread on a Boss Mustang and not bring the Z/28 into the discussion on a Camaro board. I'd rather you had something to contribute here though, instead of trying to start another flame war.

Pentatonic

What mistakes?

Here's one point I think people are forgetting; there are no mistakes on the 5th gen.

Room for improvement? Yes.

Mistakes? No.

I think some people forget that GM is a business; not a "let's make the autocross and CZ28 crowd happy" organization. Along with delivering a great performance car, they have to keep R&D costs down, which may mean utilizing an architecture that is less than ideal for pony car performance. They may not have the money to spend on a lightweight architecture solely for the Camaro. So they have to make trade-offs in terms of weight, R&D costs and other factors.

So GM made some trade-offs with the 5th gen. They are improving the interior for future models I hear. Great! Shouldn't be too difficult, expect for tooling costs for new molds and things like that.

But the weight issue; that's harder to fix. When you're talking about a 200-300 lb weight reduction from a car, you're getting into the territory of an architecture change; and that's a HUGE cost. It's such a huge cost that it probably doesn't make sense to change it.

I hope GM has the resources to make a lightweight 6th gen. I really do. But if they don't, they'll have to make trade-offs again.

And my final point is; if GM's 5th gen trade-offs were so bad, that it's weight is so terrible to the average consumer, and the interior is so awful, then why on earth has the 5th gen out-sold the Mustang for over a year now?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36180212/ns/business-autos/

Looks like GM's decisions worked this time. Instead of having a tunnel-vision focus on weight and sportiness like the CZ28 crew would have them do, they looked at the big picture instead and now are reaping the rewards of that.

Bob Cosby

Another

The current car isn't my cup-o-tea, but there is no denying its sales success.

teal98

It's ironic that the 1971 Boss351 was based on the Torino and was quite a bit heavier than the 1970 model Mustangs.

Maybe lack of size is not everything.

Z284ever

I guess the big picture here is that Camaro has once again been (re)accepted as an integral part of the Chevy line-up, as it should be. For that, Camaro fans should be thankful.

With that said, as Bob mentioned, this one is just not my personal cup of tea. I hope the next one is though...

Sax1031

At first I was hearing rumors of 450hp.

437hp is nothing to be ashamed of though.

Especially if they could drop some weight off of it. Because I have heard rumors it would be lighter than the 2011 GT also.