[darkpuppet]

As some of you may remember, I recently test drove the Mustang GT convertible... And I wasn't the most impressed... it shakes, it shimmies, but it tries to do it surreptitiously, making for a loud, somewhat unsettled ride.

While it's about as manly a manly car you can get, it's almost too overwhelming to the senses.

Anyhoo.. in an effort to make the sales staff run around crunching numbers, and to earn my Ford waterbottle for showing up to tonights renewal event, I thought..what the hey? let's take a v6 convertible out.

It had the pony edition crud on it (I like the wheels, don't like the faux GT grill)...and an autotragic (that's all they had left on the lot, and believe it or not, it can save you some big coin on your lease payments).

Anyhoo.. to the road test... Dare I say it? The car was quieter, but still had a bit of a growl to it... the automatic tranny did it's job admirably, though at least one timezone later than I had expected, but the car felt... I don't know.. .. lighter? more rigid?

sure there just wasn't the power to work the backend as in the GT, so the backend didn't do it's waver... but here's the kicker.

The front end felt stiffer too.. cowl shake was nearly imperceptible.

There is one good set of railroad tracks along the route that are none too smooth, and let me tell ya... The front end, while not the most rigid, didn't feel like it was trying to hold back the cowlshake. If I had to liken the difference, it would be like having a giant lead weight on the end of a diving board vs having a light weight on th end of the diving board.

Once the heavy weight starts moving, it's hard to stop... that's exactly how the GT cowlshake felt... the v6... it moved, sure, but it didn't resonate after the bumps either.

I have to be honest... as immasculating as it would be to get a base-model mustang, the v6 was more pleasant... and more fun to drive in the short time I had it.

of course opinions differ I'm sure, but if you're going stang, don't write off the v6...