Mistakes happen—they just better not happen in Dad’s car. One young man seems to have forgotten that rule after he apparently hopped into his dad’s Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R to start it up for his friends and accidentally launched the stick-shift sports car into a wall. Oh yes, there’s video.
Uploaded to Facebook, the clip shows the Mustang from behind, driver door open as the young man attempts to start it. You can hear a brief accessory chime in the first second, as if he’s trying to turn it on without stepping on the clutch. At about five seconds in, he succeeds in coaxing the 527-horsepower Voodoo V8 to life, but the car immediately lurches forward and smacks the metal wall with a sickening crunch.
Warning, there’s some brief NSFW language here.
Oops. At the risk of overexplaining—though clearly he hadn’t heard this before—if you shut off a manual transmission car while it’s in gear, you’ll need to pop it back into neutral after starting it up again and letting off the clutch. Otherwise, it’ll lurch forward as the engine remains directly connected to the drive wheels.
While that short clip is enough to make anyone wince, it’s the kid’s reaction that makes the entire video completely relatable—and if we’re honest, hilarious. He’s seen exiting the Mustang, totally freaked out and crying, “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m f**king dead!” We feel ok in chuckling because a.) that’s what you get for starting someone’s car without permission, and b.) in the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not a big deal. Any damage was likely minimal.
Good thing too, because the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R deserves better than an inexperienced kid “driving” four feet into a wall. Short of the new GT500 (which can’t be had with a manual), the Shelby GT350R is the most track-focused pony car in the Mustang lineup, a snarling riot that’ll shoot from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, pull well over 1.09 Gs of lateral grip in a corner, and keep you laser focused on the task at hand with that six-speed stick.
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