looking into superfomance

[gary osborne]

Hey guys....fast cars break. I don't care what manufacturer's name is on them. I have a SPF with well over 60,000 carefree miles on it since I bought it 11 years ago. The first 45,000 went on pretty fast. The last 15,000+ has been a little slower due to a career change. Nonetheless, I have driven mine hard and had no problems at all on or off the track. Now keep in mind I am also running a 514 with about 600 HP and the same torque. I am currently replacing that engine with an 800 HP 800 ft lbs Jon Kaase P-51 engine. You strap that much engine in a car (and many if not most SPF's are running well over 500) and hook it up (tough to do....I know) and there is a chance something is going to snap. If you are only running 400 HP...there is a big difference. The nice thing about big HP is it is hard to hook it up and when the tires are spinning...nothing is gonna break...LOL.

Comparing SPF and Backdraft is tough to do depending on what you want in a car. If you just want a fun basic car, the Backdraft is tough to beat. But you add all the things that come standard in the Superformance and you will see a backdraft rivaling the price tag of the Superformance. Of course, the REAL cost of a car is not how much you pay for it. It is the difference between what you paid for it and what you can sell it for. And even THAT number will change a lot depending upon how long you keep the car and what you have in it. I could sell my car today at about the same price as I paid for it. That is mostly due to the fact that prices have increased over the years. But that works to my advantage. It is probably too soon to guess how well the resale value will hold up with some of the new manufacturers but the Spf holds its own against most of the others. I imagine (although I have not checked) that a Shelby holds very well due to the name if nothing else.

Hal Copple has somewhere around 150,000 miles +/- on his SPF with virtually no troubles. Yeah, he has gone through some brakes and had some minor upkeep things to do on it. The engine (which is has nothing to do with SPF) has had some work done. But it has to be the highest mileage cobra out there and it is absolutely gorgeous and tight as a drum to this day. Keep in mind that he has a good 50,000 miles of track time on that car and NO he does not baby it around the track. That says a LOT about the quality of a Superformance. It does not mean others are not as good. It is just a real life example that SPF has been tested in ways few others have and it remains like new.

As far as who is fastest....that story will never be told to anyone's satisfaction but I would venture to say it has a lot more to do with the name of the driver than the name of the car. I know three or four SPF drivers who i would put up against anyone without concern for what the other person is driving. I also know a couple of Backdraft guys who are FAST (one is a dear friend and Backdraft dealer which is one good reason I would not say anything bad about a backdraft). But one has to remember that the car is not what makes these guys fast. It is the skills they have developed behind the wheel.