This week, Car And Driver published a road test of the supercharged Spec 3 Mustang built by professional drifter and two-time Formula D champion Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s RTR tuning firm, and the results weren’t spectacular. Despite having an 810-horsepower supercharged five-liter V8 under the hood, it was slower in acceleration tests to the sorts of speeds people are likely to see on the street, gave up a bit of grip on the skidpad, and required an extra ten feet to stop from 70 MPH compared to a regular Mustang GT with the Performance Package.
Add in an as-tested price knocking on the door of $110,000, and you can see why the magazine came up with the verdict “Looks like a champion but won’t finish first.”
Normally, this wouldn’t be a story. It just sounds like another day in the office at any number of automotive outlets, but then something strange happened. A commenter by the screen name “VGittinJr” responded to the road test in the comments section of the article, and a spokesperson from RTR has confirmed that Vaughn Gittin Jr. himself left this comment:
We appreciate your time with the Spec 3. We do not build Spec 3’s to shatter instrument tests. Can we do that? Of course, easily. In fact the car is one set of tires away from completely changing the headline you have chosen. Perhaps we did not do a good job at telling you why this car exists. Our intent for the Spec 3 and Spec 2 for that matter is a diverse fun car that can ensure owners enjoy any and every type of fun behind the wheel he or she can imagine. We have chosen the tires we chose because they are good in the rain and very progressive when it come to the limit, they also won’t require a tire change after a few donuts in my opinion they are the best all around Mustang tire. Our suspension is a compliment to this mindset, confidence inspiring and progressive (not snappy) at the limit. . This mustang is an all around enthusiast driver’s car, not a track record breaker. Our owners absolutely love them. I was just at the Tail of the Dragon with 30 of them smiling ear to ear.
Up until this point, the comment seems like just a reasonable explanation of why RTR chose those specific components and tires for its Spec 3 Mustang. However, things get weird in the second paragraph (emphasis mine):
We of course knew that we would not impress your instruments when we agreed to the test, we do know what drivers say of our vehicles and I must say I’m a bit disappointed that the writer/driver of this article did not touch on the overall driving experience and only focused on numbers. It makes me wonder if AI is doing the writing after data is output. The overall driver and owner experience is what this vehicle is about and is what anyone that has experienced our Spec line up has raved about.
Even in a veiled manner, suggesting that generative AI was used to write an article is a serious allegation, and one that would need to be backed up with substantiative proof. It’s tantamount to claiming that a company that stamps “made in America” across its advertising copy is actually just dropshipping parts from China, but not providing manifests or anything to back up such a bold allegation.
Strong claims require strong evidence, and that just hasn’t been provided here. I reached out to Hearst, the organization that owns Car And Driver, about this and received this response: “Thanks for reaching out. Elana [the writer] wrote that article entirely on her own.”
[Ed note: This sucks. Elana is real and wonderful person, as well as a great writer. Even vaguely intimating that a computer wrote for her is incredibly unfair and just plain dumb. There is no computer built that can craft a sentence as well as she can. Gittin Jr. is way out of line here and completely undermines any argument he may have otherwise had. – MH]
As a pattern, Car And Driver’s instrumented tests tend to follow a data-driven layout, so it’s not as if a heavy focus on test track numbers isn’t precedented. It’s worth noting that a second account by the screen name “RTRvehicles” also commented on the road test with a more corporate statement:
We respect the perspective your instruments created, but the Mustang RTR Spec 3 was never built to chase instrument test numbers.
At RTR, we’re not chasing expectations or numbers. We’re focused on building vehicles that create a connection the moment you get behind the wheel.
The kind of connection that makes you take the long way home.
That builds confidence with every corner.
That turns every drive into something you look forward to.
That’s why every element of the Mustang RTR Spec 3 is intentionally chosen, from the engineering of our suspension to the tire setup, designed to inspire confidence for drivers of all experience levels and support a variety of fun behind the wheel. Whether you’re carving back roads, heading to your first track day, drifting, donuts, or simply enjoying the drive, the experience is built to put a smile on your face.
When you drive an RTR, it becomes more than just transportation.
It’s the community.
It’s the shared passion.
It’s the friends you didn’t even know you’d have.
That’s what the Mustang RTR Spec 3 was built to deliver. A connected driving experience for drivers who want more than just numbers.
Available to All. Not for Everyone.
Regardless, it goes without saying that providing Car And Driver with a car for instrumented testing and clapping back at the results seems like waving a “cake me” sign at a Steve Aoki show and being upset that you got hit in the face with a sheet cake. The loan was already agreed upon, and when a company loans a car out for evaluation, it opens the product up to fair criticism.
In the case of this RTR Spec 3 review, criticism largely centers around the sort of performance figures this modified Mustang generates for the money. As Car And Driver wrote:
At 4.7 seconds to 60 mph, the RTR is not as quick as a stock manual GT, which can manage the same task in 4.2 seconds. It’s slower in the quarter-mile too, smoking its tires with all but the lightest touch, which results in a 12.7-second run at 121 mph to the stock manual GT’s 12.5-second pass at 114 mph. Things aren’t any better when the RTR’s mass changes direction or comes to a halt. Our test car required 163 feet to stop from 70 mph, sliding well past the GT’s 153 feet. It can’t grip the skidpad as tightly either, pulling just 0.92 g of stick to the GT’s 0.99 g. In the numbers game, our heavily optioned Spec 3 example hardly seems worth its hefty $109,808 as-tested price, especially when it’s being outrun by a stocker that costs significantly less.
Beyond that, the articles notes “if you do too many burnouts, that stock clutch will perfume the parking lot with the expensive scent of failure,” which also seems like a fair criticism considering entering the burnout box is pretty standard for anyone taking a rear-wheel-drive car to the drag strip. Objectively, nothing here falls below editorial standards for any outlet in North America. Want an example?
Earlier this year, I lived with the updated Lexus RZ 550e for a week. It’s definitely an improved effort over the old RZ, but the hot trim level feels like questionable value once you factor in the shortened range, strong price, and beta-version-feeling simulated shift mode it gets over a base model. Despite this, Akio Toyoda did not drop into the comments to accuse me of using ChatGPT.
Outside of a handful of outliers, there’s a general understanding that fair evaluation stands, and it really ought to because a car is usually the second-most-expensive thing people buy in their lifetimes. Sometimes cars have irksome traits that don’t appear during a quick around-the-block test drive at a dealership, and everyone worth their salt in this industry will let you know about them.
Worst-case, the outlet sometimes doesn’t get another car, but that’s about as far as things usually go. Beyond that, I have a strong suspicion that Car And Driver’s road test probably won’t damp the enthusiasm of anyone looking to pick up an RTR Spec 3. It still looks sweet, shaving 1.1 seconds off the top-gear 50-to-70 mph acceleration test means you’ll notice the supercharger from a roll, and while the Nitto NT555 G2 tires offer middling grip, they last a long time if you want to slide around.
While this may seem like a somewhat petty thing to report on, the president of a company hopping in the comments section of a fair review and seemingly accusing a well-respected automotive journalist of using AI without any proof is very weird, and as we are journalists ourselves, not something we’re going to ignore. Needless to say, I’ll keep you updated if this situation develops further.
Top graphic image: RTR
The biggest reason why I’d buy one of these things is to have the most performant Mustang. I don’t care about fun. If I wanted fun, I’d buy a fun car for a couple grand.
I think Vaughn is way out of line here…and as a longtime fan of him (in both his drift and offroad careers) there are definitely times where he has gotten a bit hot headed. I do have to wonder if he is stuck with the Nitto NT555 G2 tires due to his racing sponsorship and just has to deal with it. On the autocross side, they do not heat up fast enough and as far as i know, there are much stickier tire options out there for track use. I find it interesting that with 800hp, thats the tire they went with because theres a lot of other tires out there that offer a progressive drop off, though admittedly, the Bridgestones I use for Autox can be dicey in heavy rain.
What the hell do you have to do to an 800hp car to make it run a nearly 13 second quarter mile? Are there sprayers above the rear tires dispensing melted butter? I went 11.9 in a 500lb heavier car with half the power. Your $100k mustang is slower than a Golf R. No reason for any automotive publication to not call it out.
4.7 to 60 is pretty sad.
My ’10 SLK55 with 355 HP needs 4.5s 🙂
My Hyundai does 4.8 lol
My mostly stock S197 GT does it in 4.5.
With a stick axle and Conti DWS06 all-seasons.
Praise be to the almighty DWS06+. Incredible tire for the money.
Big old Stinger will do 4.7 with 365hp.
Is this RTR spinning through the first three gears or something?
I would, however, be very interested in installing the aforementioned melted butter sprayers above my dining table… yesterday.
555G2s are garbage tires probably has a lot to do with it. Like a solid step above whatever crap Sumitomo sells that dealers swap onto cars to say “new tires!” and well well below even something like a good All-Seasons. I had a set on 315s on the rear (and front but that’s another store) of my Corvette and it was squirrely with those on a car with better weight balance and less than half the horsepower; especially if it was even remotely damp out.
My assumption mirrors what someone said below: That RTR chose those tires specifically and in such a narrow width so people don’t hook up too well when leaving the Cars and Coffee and immediately fry the stock clutch they left in. They’re also very cheap but they look aggressive and grippy.
I wonder if this is good publicity for RTR. The overlap between people who buy $110k aftermarket Mustangs with little competitive advantage and those who “can’t say enough bad things about the media” might be pretty large…
We reached out to Hearst and they tried to sell us a radar detector, dash cam, and wax.
We reached out to Hearst and Patty showed up packing heat.
You forgot the pheromone and male enhancement potions advertised in the back.
In fairness to RTR, they simply responded to the article with “extra information” about why someone might want one of these things, which seems fine to me. The only thing that crosses any line at all is Gittin saying it reads like AI. I mean, rude, but not exactly slanderous. Let’s get over taking offense at every little slight. There’s no need to defend the author of the C&D article; I’m sure she’s a wonderful person, but this just brings the comment further into the spotlight instead of just letting it die.
“Let’s get over taking offense at every little slight”
This isn’t a little slight. A good analogy would be for C&D to state in the article that Gittin has nothing to do with his company but put his name on it. At best, it’s Gittin trying to antagonize the author and at worst it is calling a writer’s professional behavior in to question over a negative review. From a company standpoint, Gittin would be in a much better position by providing the explanation he did, then taking the C&D data and seeing how the car can be improved.
Eh, agree to disagree. It’s a tiny slight given the vitriolic world of social media. Agree with the rest of what you say though.
They should have added a statement in the article along the lines of “Sure, VGJ is promoting this and supposedly had a hand in making it, but based on how the parts don’t quite add up to a coherent whole we’re wondering if AI did the design and engineering work.”
Perfect
Elana is good people based on everything I’ve read or watched that she’s been involved in. RTR… I’ve seen a few of their cars languishing on dealer lots and now I understand why.
“Good tires, not Great tires.”
COTD to those who understand the reference.
Vaughn Gittin Jr used to be a pretty cool dude. He’s from Maryland, used to do stuff with local clubs and such. (I met him several times at Mustang Club of Maryland events.) Then his 15 minutes of fame went to his head, and he became a supreme douchebag.
I own a well-optioned 2020 GT PP1 with a manual transmission. I paid just shy of $50k for it brand new. If a $60k premium that includes a blower can’t outright destroy my car in all the measurable ways, this is a huge fail for RTR… they should be embarassed.
I think there is a disconnect between creative professionals and the general public about accusations of using AI.
“Using AI” has replaced “my kid or a million monkeys with typewriters could do that”. The difference is that nobody’s career was ever ended by accusations of being a million monkeys, Walt Whitman aside.
“Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab”
Anyway, a setup that has an approachable limit rather that hanging on and letting go spectacularly at unrecoverable speeds seems reasonable, when I get my Porsche running again I’ll try to do that since I’m moving to the land of 100 year old stone walls next to the fun roads.
The Isle of Man ?
I wish
Hudson valley NY, about 15 miles west of Lime Rock. But lots of the old estates and farms built stone walls along the roads with all the rocks they pulled out of the fields in the 1800s
It’s been a while since I looked at what RTR does… went and read the C&D article… among many other things I find it hard to understand why you’d put 800hp on a rear-drive car and give it just 295 section rear tires? I though the whole thing with RTR was that they were for taking to the track? C&D says that RTR says they are “built for race and drift competition” which is weird since the way you set up a car is massively different for each of those two things…
Not the first nor last time a tuner special got beat by the stock version. I’ve seen Hennessy, Roush, Saleen and many others have similar outcomes. You can go slap a supercharger on a regular GT and not really be any faster until it can actually hook up. This particular test does show that it picks up 7mph in the quarter, so it does make more power. The sent the wrong tires and got pissy about it.
it seems the tire chosen is intentionally less grippy = slides and longer/comparable life span. But then if you consider the price, it is hard to justify.
Scratching my head over the value the RTR Spec 3 offers.
and
So, RTR created a stock Mustang with a high-powered engine mod? Help me understand this.
It’s so when you say “hold my beer” you will still be able to finish it after deliberately turning the steering wheel and smoking the tires. Whereas big sticky tires would launch you into the scenery or the host of the cookout’s kids.
What he should have done is released a video, running them side by side, showing his being better, cooler, super duper worth the cost. To make sure it isn’t accused of being AI, he even could have had a couple people who aren’t known to be fans, or have a respected reputation there to verifty.
But he did this.
Available to All (rich folks). Not for Everyone.
Fixed it.
I wonder if Gittin just didn’t understand how serious a charge of using AI to write the article really is? He’s a car guy, not a journalist or writer. It was a harsh, if fair review, and I wouldn’t blame him for being upset over it, so perhaps he just fired back with the first sort of countercharge he could come up with, not realizing (or thinking about) how that would be taken, particularly within the journalism community. Which is one community you really don’t want to piss off.
As for the car, it’s a “whatever” for me. If RTR wants to build them and people want to buy them, more power to all of them.
His reply with all the run-on sentences made me wish he’d run it through an AI first.
Are they saying they made a “track weapon” for road use or a “crowd weapon” if you will mustangs have been doing that for a while. The drifters love Nitto, my experience with them has been not great but I wasn’t trying to drift. I wouldn’t doubt that’s part of their issue. Maybe they know that they are suited for chaos and not for actual driving. Maybe they should have delivered the car to the track with a set of tires that were suited for the kind of driving they do.
This is the evolution of hollering “fake news.”
Poor special snowflake can’t handle Car and Driver’s facts not caring about his feelings. Poor guy, maybe he can call the president and ask him to get the article banned…
TL:DR: Tuning logic good. Tire selection = sponsorship/partnership. PR not good.
Yikes. Not a good look and this response draws attention to the shortcomings. Also, he can argue all he wants about the tire selection, and I support all the tuning logic that he detailed, but I don’t believe for one minute that choosing a Nitto tire was anything beyond a sponsorship/partnership deal with them that he’s had for a long time. Maybe it’s the best (drift) tire because it has less grip than a MPS4S and, if that’s the objective, then fine. Too many cars chase the numbers and we need more that focus on experience over speed. So, in the end, maybe I support it?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you that the guy whose entire schtick is overcharging for Mustangs that are even better equipped to wrap themselves around telephone poles than the stock ones is acting like an unprofessional dick online….
lol what AI is being used to scan my comment that is “awaiting for approval”?
It’s A person named Mercedes, or I do it.
COTD (if Matt is eligible haha)
I was going to say it’s whatever Torch can get to run on an Apple IIc, a Commodore 64 and an IBM PCjr wired in series.
Don’t forget the cyber meats
Beat me to it! Torch encoding the comments on salami takes time, you know.
I think by this time he’s standardized on one form of processed meat for both data storage and bumper guards.
I wonder if Jason writes his stories on a Newton when he’s traveling.
Thank you for all the work that you do! I was grumpy yesterday.
Perfect example for why I don’t read car and driver or road and track or whatever other, “lets see skid pad g meter results and 0-60 times and lap times” to determine whether a car is good or not. its the same BS with all the paddle shifters “because its faster”. Y’all missed the point. We aren’t out here to be Lewis Hamilton. We are out here to have fun. To enjoy our time behind the wheel (or handlebars). This is just yet another race to the bottom.
This is why EVO is the best car magazine of all time.
This is why THIS site is the best autosite out there.
Its about the passion. Its about the experience. Its about learning something about yourself and the machine and the people you experience that with. Not just how good it did on a skid pad.
GET OFF MY LAWN! I am going to go ride a bike.
Not disagreeing with you, but the point of this article is that instead of simply defending his car, the RTR owner passive aggressively attacked an accomplished veteran writer’s character. His comment was perfectly civil until that point.
Oh, I certainly took a hard right at the beginning of the article. Agreed that it was a barbed attack.
But, how does the RTR Mustang help people have ca. $50,000 worth of additional fun vs a regular Mustang GT Performance Package, which is already pretty fun?
Agreed, while I could barely justify 50k for a fun car, no way a 100k without it being a vintage desirable likely to appreciate. I always thought it was much wiser to jump a category than a pimped version of a lower car.
I suggest you go and read the article if you think it’s only about skid pad results and 0-60 times. The closing paragraph is a good summary of both the improvements and failings of a rather expensive modified Mustang:
It seems to me that the main takeaway from the article is that the whole RTR package isn’t worth the money. For less money you stick with a conventional, off the showroom floor bog standard Mustang GT and wind up with greater speed, better turning, better stopping…you get the RTR package why?
For the community?
For community, I come here. That didn’t cost me six figures.
Yeah, I’m having a really hard time seeing where the value is in this. Hell, if you’re just going to make a slower and more expensive Mustang, at least upgrade the interior like Zimmer did. Crystal bud vases might not be everyone’s style, but at least that sort of thing makes it obvious where the money went
I have a hard time wrapping my head around dropping six figures on ANY Mustang….
Even if the wheelbase is stretched ahead of the firewall and it has fake supercharger pipes and big fiberglass fenders and running boards glued on?
A Mustang is a great $45,000 sports car
…no amount of Autozone looking add ons or superchargers can make it a great $100,000 sports car. They couldn’t even be bothered to do the fucking clutch on these! It’s 800+ horsepower going through the exact same Getrag transmission that regular Mustang GTs blow up regularly.
totall on point on trans and clutch. if you gonna slap a supercharger, should’ve modded trans and put better clutch
Maybe that’s why they left the not grippy tires on it?
So it won’t smoke the clutch or trans?
Seems like a waste of money for the mods they did.
Well that’s another excellent for less grippy rear tires. In the end it’s not the engine that breaks transmissions it’s the tires.
Maybe it’s all about tip in throttle response?
Not my cup of absinthe, and all that.
They should be using a Jatco CVT.
Ehh, a GT500 CTFP or GT350R are fucking amazing drivers cars, point blank.
MH parts a curtain of the richest corinthian leather: “Now friend, if you’ll just come over here with me, I have my finest, most exclusive memberships in here…”
“ For community, I come here. That didn’t cost me six figures.”
Well, not with that attitude it won’t.
Ironically, the RTR comment reeks of AI writing.
The RTR brand name sounds like early AI.
“Hey Google, give me a brand name that implies this vehicle is ready to race with a three-letter acronym”
“How about Ready To Race, or as an acronym: RTR”
It’s even dumber than that, Ready to Rock not ready to race.
I thought it was like “Party RTR”
Like this
https://youtu.be/Fymlfv3Okzs
I was coming here to see if anyone said the same thing. That last “corporate statement” is textbook AI-style writing, with lines like,
“At RTR, we’re not chasing expectations or numbers. We’re focused on building vehicles that create a connection the moment you get behind the wheel.
The kind of connection that makes you take the long way home.
That builds confidence with every corner.
That turns every drive into something you look forward to.”
Don’t accuse a veteran writer of using AI when it looks like your company does the exact same thing. It just makes you look like a hypocritical idiot.
Right? I hate that AI’s summation of human communications is just sentence fragments and sound bites. This kind of
LinkedIn Baitlanguage drives me nuts.Ready to Retaliateinthecomments