McLaren HP for M3 Prices | 2025 RTR Mustang Spec 3

A normal Cars and Coffee spec 2025 Mustang GT makes 486 horsepower and 418 pound-feet of torque. That engine will move the 3,800-pound car from 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds, but you can spend 15 grand more to get the dark horse and shave that time to 4.1 seconds. I know, it's about thermal management and handling and track performance. But what if you want to make more power? What if you want to make more power than a Corvette Z06 or a Mustang GT500 or even a McLaren 750S? Well, you can get one of these, an RTR Spec 3. What is it? How much is it? How is it different from a GT500, and should you buy one? All of that today on The Smoking Tire. There are three flavors of Spec 1 is basically an appearance package, lowering springs, and wheels and tires. There's a little more to it, but that's the gist. Spec 2's parts list is long. It's Spec 1 plus a lot of aero parts, sway bars, adjustable shocks, and more. But Spec 3 is what we have here. The parts list is as long as a congressional bill, and a lot like Congress, I'm not going to read it to you. If you want to see it, look in the description. The aesthetic changes are extensive and obvious if you put it next to a normal GT. But because we car people are simple animals, what gets attention is horsepower. Guys, speaking of enormous horsepower Mustangs, can we talk about boners? Maybe you used to have better boners. As we get older, that process is not known for improving the boner as a concept naturally through aging, right? And that's why today's video is brought to you by Rex MD. They can help with this. Maybe if your love life was better in the past, maybe you've been dancing around that issue, avoiding taking the plunge to try to get back to that place. You are not alone, my friend. Old school boners await. All you have to do is share your health history at Rex MD, your symptoms and goals through a short quiz on the website, right? 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It is larger than the one that came on the GT500. And it's why this car makes 810 horsepower and 615 pound feet of torque. That's almost as much torque as two Civic Type R engines. Also, look at this intake. That is truly massive AF. There's aero upgrades as well. Some are visible, others hidden. Splitters, vents, ducting, all to keep the engine cool and the car on the ground. The new suspension includes adjustable shocks and struts, lowering springs, and adjustable sway bars, so you can tune the ride to your liking, although adjusting the shocks requires a key. The suspension is from RTR Tactical Performance, so when you're done driving, you can use it to defend your house. I actually had to grow this operator beard just to get the car to unlock. Not bad, right? Just kidding. Please don't snipe me while I'm editing my little YouTube videos. Donate to Veterans Help Funds. They always need help more than ever. I'm a big fan of Hunter 7 Foundation, but there's so many good ones out there. All right. Well, we have 275 tires in the front, 295s in the back, and the sidewall would make a river raft jealous. Let's see how they hook up. Wheel spin. Traction's on. Lots of wheel spin. I really like the way these cars sound. They just sound so mad. It's like the dinosaurs are yelling at the asteroid from beyond the grave. Wow. Wow. So here's the thing about Mustangs. On this channel and on the Smoking Tire Podcast, we have talked a lot about how Mustang horsepower feels compared to Porsche horsepower. BMW horsepower. Even Chevy horsepower. What am I saying? Well, we've driven a number of Mustangs that had superchargers on them and turbo kits, and they never felt like they were as fast as advertised. They never felt like they made the power they advertised. And I don't know why. I don't know if it's drivetrain loss. I don't know if it's the bushing selection. So not as much of the power is put down to the ground. Or maybe it's just because they're comfortable. You're kind of insulated from the speed and the acceleration. So of course, the question I had this morning is, will this car feel like 810 horsepower? I would say it feels close, but there are a couple of things working against it here. One, it's 81 degrees here. It's November. I wore a jacket. I thought it'd be cold. It's not. Also, I'm at 4,000 feet. And sure, force induction helps with altitude, but only to a degree. So it's probably not going to make all the power it should make under these conditions. So this doesn't have the furious acceleration I felt in the Corvette Z06, which weighs about the same as this. The McLaren, of course, is a little unfair. It weighs 500 pounds less. It's mid-engine. It's also probably underrated. But enough about that. Let's talk about all the other things they've done. Handling. The ride up here was pretty comfortable. Not too stiff over Ellie's terrible freeways, sharp expansion joints, etc. Now here in the canyons, I think it feels the right amount of stiff. I get a little body roll. Not too much. It's not leaning over. They did a great job. Whatever they've done to tune the suspension, they did it well. I really like the brake pedal. I like the way it engages pretty early in the pedal stroke. That's what I want. This is a heavy car, but these Brembos do a good job. Oh, my shirt is now on the floor. Put it back on the chair, just hit the gas. And this isn't going to be a thorough review on the GT itself, because we've done videos like that, and there are plenty of them out there. So if you want to learn about screens and stuff, you can go watch one of those videos. I'll just say that I find the screens super legible and helpful to live with, and I don't really mind them that much. What I think is actually funnier is that right below this very expensive, detailed, impressive screen is this button panel that just wiggles. So if I press the button all the way to the right, the buttons on the left wiggle too. Choose your battles with the accountants, I guess. And throws you back in the seat. And back is fine, but these seats do not hold you in place when you turn. That just seems to be a Mustang thing. I'm just, I'm using my legs. Using a lot of legs here. Ford and RTR engineers do a good job of hiding 3,800 pounds. I mean, they're not the only ones in the game that do that. Everyone's really figured out suspension and tires. Suspension's adjustable, sway bars are adjustable. I would just mess it up. Whoever did this, I like it. Didn't tramline on the highway. Really, like, straight shooter. Just, just cruised. Not too much, like, tow or camber. We've got good brakes. We've got good suspension. But what we don't have, and this is not RTR's fault, this is Ford's fault, is steering feel. This car, regular GTs, the Dark Horse itself, every one of them I've driven in the last few years has no steering feel. I have no clue what's going on with the front tires, and that is a big disappointment. It's probably not something they can dial out with aftermarket parts. This is a steering system issue. Hopefully Ford fixes it in the coming years, because it's a big demerit to how fun these are to drive and how talkable they are. Got this nice RTR shift knob on it. Feels good. The engagement in this trans is pretty good. You know, they've improved it over the years with the GT. It's not as hard and, like, you know, analog feeling as the the Tremec that you get in the Mach 1. It doesn't have that, like, rifle click clack, but it's pretty good. I'd say better than what you get in a BMW. That has a little more kush and mush to it. Carries a lot of speed. Tires are sticky. Look, suspension-wise, this is well set. If you can get a spec 2, they'll do the suspension for you, they'll do the cool aero bits so people know that you're different, and you can just rock around with the normal Coyote engine. It's a great engine, plenty of power. 486, that's enough. This is, like, for people that, I don't know, runway race in Texas or live in Texas or, you know, if you want to go drag racing, I guess. I mean, honestly, what it does is it really speaks to the reliability and construction of the Coyote engine, because this doesn't have all the, like, fancy internal bits the GT500 got. This is just a Coyote with a blower on it. It's got a warranty and 810 horsepower. Zero to 60 in the Z06 is 2.5 seconds, I think, tested by Car and Driver. They ran 10s in the quarter, mid-10s in the quarter. Car and Driver tested a GT500 in 2022, and it ran a mid-11. I don't think adding 50 more horsepower, which is what this has over the GT500, is going to make up that amount of time in the 1320. Let's talk about RTR and Vaughn. In a way, they are, to Ford marketing, what Shelby and Jack Roush were to that, you know? Yes, Vaughn's signature is on the dashboard, just like Carroll Shelby used to do, but I get it. I get it from Vaughn's side. I get it from Ford's side. You know, Vaughn helps them advertise, helps bring people into the brand, and it's a name that a lot of us know. Maybe not as many people as knew Carroll Shelby back in the day. I don't know. I don't know how many people actually read the paper back then, but I will say that Vaughn Gittin Jr. is a fantastic drift driver. He's kicking ass in Ultra 4 Off-Road. He's a super passionate, friendly guy, and he's incredibly hardworking and smart. Now he's got his name on a car, and if you're my age or younger, it makes a lot of sense to see that name there instead of seeing Shelby or Roush. So the RTR lands in an interesting place price-wise. It's a real, if you know, you know, bro. $107,000. That's a lot of money, and most people are going to see this and just think it's a Mustang GT, or maybe a GT with some aesthetic changes to it because that's what it is until you open the hood. Honestly, I was expecting this to be like $80,000. The GT500 was way less than this. The Dark Horse, the Mach 1, all much less expensive. Now I should adjust those for inflation. I'll do that math here because the GT500 came out in 2022, I think, and the last Mach 1 I drove was around that time. At $100,000, the competition is fierce, but there's less of it than there used to be. What can you get? Well, you could get a C63. It's got that weird engine and transmission. You can get an Amira, an amazing car to drive, totally different attitude than this thing. Parts may be harder to find than Ford parts, just a guess, but you can also get a lot of Corvette. You can get a Z51 LT3 loaded to the hilt. You could get a used Z06, but I think it's unfair to compare this to the used market. That's a totally different conversation. Really, the whole is it worth it question comes down to you. It's about your finances and what you like. If I was shopping for a $100,000 car with the amount of money I currently make, I would have to put so much thought into that car being everything I need a car to be because that would be the only car I could afford and it would be a stretch. But if you have four cars or you want eight cars or seven cars, I don't know if you have a bunch of cars or you make way more money than I do, then this might be a, yeah, sure. You'll drive it for a year. You'll have some fun and then you'll sell it. So it's a choice. It's a very personal choice. That said, it is expensive. I can hear your fingers on the keys. The GT500 was priced similarly, even higher if you chose certain options. But it also had that amazing dual clutch transmission and the adaptive dampers, two sophistications that the RTR does not have. I do wonder how close I could get in performance using a normal GT and the aftermarket catalog. However, knowing it was all installed and adjusted correctly brings peace of mind. And for many, that's worth paying for. And don't forget, always fight your tickets. Go to offtherecord.com slash TST for 10% off all legal services from Off the Record.