A new Ford Shelby GT350 Mustang crashed pulling out of a Cars and Coffee event in Texas, nearly plowing through a large crowd of spectators with many small children and unbelievably – the driver got out of the car, smiling and waving to the crowd as though he had just performed an impressive stunt rather than nearly killing innocent people.
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If you spend any time on Facebook or an automotive community message board, you surely know of the ongoing joke about how often we see a Ford Mustang driver losing control while leaving a car show. Truthfully, all sorts of vehicles have lost control while trying to show off when leaving a big car show, but it seems that an awful lot of those incidents caught on camera are Mustangs.
In the past, Ive avoided talking about these types of foolish incidents because I didn’t want to showcase the idiots causing the accidents. After seeing the reaction of the pompous driver after almost running his new Shelby GT350 Mustang through a crowd with many small children – combined with the fact that no one was hurt this time – I wanted to put together a quick piece reminding everyone out there with a fast car how quickly things can go very wrong.
The Ford Shelby GT350 Mustang Crash
This video was captured at the Cars and Coffee event on October 1st in Houston, Texas. There are many, many clips of this Ford Mustang losing control and crashing, but I picked this one because there is no sound. Right after the crash, the videos with sound are packed with an endless stream of profanity, as the spectators rightfully unload on the careless driver and because I don’t see the need to showcase that – I picked a video with no sound. Ultimately, we know what a car sounds like when it is spinning around and if you really want to hear the sound, the other videos are all over YouTube.
In this video, we see a few cars drive past the camera, when a new Ford Shelby GT350 Mustang pulls out, spinning the tires. As the new Mustang does the short rolling burnout, the car kicks to one side and when the unskilled driver attempts to save it, he overcorrects, he doesn’t lift off of the throttle and the back end whips around the other way. At that point, the new Shelby Mustang heads rear end-first towards the dense crowd and thankfully, the curb stops the car instantly.
Had the Mustang hopped the curb, the car would have slammed hard into a big crowd of scattering people, and as the video shows when the crowd clears, there are several small kids who were knocked down by the stampede. If not for the curb stopping the car, there is a very real chance that many people would have been hurt and some people – including a few little kids – would have been killed.
However, no one appeared to be hurt by the Mustang, although the kids knocked down during the rush of the crowd may have sustained some bruises and scrapes.
The Aftermath
Now, you might be thinking that the driver of this Ford Shelby GT350 Mustang would get out to see if he had hurt anyone and to quickly begin apologizing, but you would be wrong. Incredibly, the guy gets out laughing and waves to the crowd, as though he had just done something to be proud of. This guy just came within feet of running over children and his response is to laugh and wave to the crowd.
As you might imagine, that enrages the crowd, which quickly swarms the new Ford Mustang as the driver walks around to survey the damage to his car. You will notice at that point that he isn’t wearing any shoes while driving his 526hp, manual transmission Mustang. Fortunately for the terrible driver, there are a few people who step in to keep the angry crowd away from him and as the video ends, we can see that the right rear wheel has been bent to a different position, presumably caused by some serious damage to the suspension setup.
In other, longer videos ripe with crazy amounts of profanity directed towards the arrogant driver show the Mustang being lifted up by a tow truck with a collection of police officers around – so we can only hope that this guy received a ticket and a massive fine for this careless driving. Unfortunately, he isn’t in handcuffs, so he can’t be in too much trouble for almost plowing through a crowd of innocent people and with any luck, this will teach him that he is better off in a low performance minivan than a high performance muscle car. Frankly, I would have rather see the crowd administer their own form of justice, but we can hope that this guy got a stiff fine for his carelessness.
A Stark Reminder to Performance Car Owners
Now, I am not going to come out and make it sound like I have never done a burnout at a car show. I’ve done more than a few short smoke shows at shows like the Woodward Dream Cruise in one of my classic cars in the past few years, but even when a Ford Mustang isn’t involved, there is one constant factor in these car show crash videos.
In almost every case, the Mustang pulls out of a parking lot and hammers the throttle. Since the car is already turning, the driver doesn’t have to keep the car straight – they have to make the car straight while the back tires and smoking. At driving schools, some students can spend an hour in the skid pad car learning how to correctly handle and maintain a driving situation like this and as we have seen in so many videos, an overcorrection can lead to plowing into a crowd of innocent car show spectators.
Burnouts are going to happen at car shows. That is one of the things that spectators hope to see when they go to the shows and as a performance car owner, you might feel the need to show off a little when you leave. If you are going to smoke the tires, make sure that your car is either stationary or pointed in a straight line before hammering the throttle and in the event that the back end starts to kick out at all, immediately let off of the throttle if you don’t know how to correct the oversteer condition. Letting off and screeching to a halt might get you laughed at, but at least you won’t run over any kids.
Oh, and in the event that you do crash and make a fool of yourself, get out of the car with some humility and begin apologizing. Everyone in Houston got lucky, but the guy still should have shown that he was just as scared as those folks were as they ran from his car.
Finally, while the problem of low performance drivers in high performance cars certainly isn't unique to the Mustang, Ford drivers in particular should think twice about screwing around when leaving a car show, as at this point, guys like this one are contributing to the negative stereotype about Mustang owners.
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