All of you Coupe owners, future owners or wanna be owners, why the Coupe ? Any regrets ?
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All of you Coupe owners, future owners or wanna be owners, why the Coupe ? Any regrets ?
Still waiting on my first ff5 build, I think the coupe is my third choice in regards to kits offered. I prefer the looks of the roadster over the coupe personally.
The roof offers more shelter for a longer, extended driving season. Given that, with the windows up you can drive in late fall chilly weather like a road car should be. That means you can take the adventurous passenger to destinations more often when good weather won't be available. It also offers some security and privacy where the open Roadster can't, or at best just a cover.
In performance, it goes up to 40mph faster, rare as that might happen. It does represent a step forward from the traditional roadster, a short historical window into the transitional cars that were road worthy for drivers by and large, but yet a leading edge in racing before the all out GT's like the GT40 arrived. It's also the last "hand engineered" car - there was very little computer calculation of the body shape. It was an intuitive rendering, much the same as the GTO, with known observation of aerodynamics and reflecting the studies of that science before wind tunnels became required.
In competition it set World Records and earned the FIA championship. It held (and may yet) 23 records for speed and endurance set at Bonneville.
In history it was the first car to be inducted in the National Historic Vehicle Registry, and did it by qualifying on ALL criteria when just placing in one is sufficient. The specific car is in a museum in Pennsylvania and has a story not only worth a movie but also replete with tragedy in it's later years, and was nearly lost. When found, it was the subject of a multi million dollar lawsuit as various parties claimed ownership.
With all that the car community is about totally ignorant of it's accomplishments, doesn't recognize it when standing next to it, and has no idea of it's story. Yet the overblown and poorly done final model of it's parent company has become iconic - not the balanced champion that should have been the stepping stone into continuous production. Shelby just saw it as an expedient tool, but the automotive makers saw it as a watershed design and still copy features from it. It influenced road cars for 50 years.
Great summary, tirod.
To me, one of the attractions of the coupe is that it takes all of the outrageous good looks of the roadster to the extreme. And there are quite a few roadsters out there but you rarely see a coupe.
All I can say is my Coupe draws the most interest at any car show I go to. Roadsters are nice but they are the most copied car out there. The Coupe is a rare bird for sure, but a pretty one IMO.
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All of what they said is true. ... definitely a rare bird.
Also from a technical autocross point of view there are a couple of advantages over the roadster. 1- You can easily run 315 front/335 rear tires. 2- It has a slightly longer wheelbase which makes settles the car some quick transitions.
FFR MkII, 408W, Tremec TKO 500, 2015 IRS, DA QA1s, Forte front bar, APE hardtop.
Because it IS a coupe!! In my opinion one of the most beautiful cars to hit the racetracks in the 60's.
Doug
Built FFR5196 MKII in 2003, 427w
Building FFR0058HR, Edlebrock 347-AOD