When I was considering replacing my '00, I looked at used New Edge cars. I found a real clean silver '03 5-speed, cloth-seat GT convertible with 49,000 miles at a Ford dealer. This car looked brand new. They wanted almost 12k for it but eventually dropped the price down to just over 10k before it sold. I didn't buy it because I didn't want a 'vert, or cloth seats.
Based on that, no doubt you could find a decent '04 GT coupe with reasonable miles on it for under 8k. I think a lot of it is going to depend on the miles, and the Ford dealers will only keep the lowest mile trade-ins, so the ones on your Ford dealer lot might be a bit higher. The independents and private sales would be more likely to get you closer to the 8k mark.
I did see a real nice coupe at a dealer with really low miles (in the teens?) but they wanted like 16 g's for that one. It was perfect, beautiful, and had about eighteen pounds of billet aluminum added to the interior. I figured for that $$ I was halfway to a new 5.0 and you can see from my sig. how that ended up.
Good luck.
that's basically double the price for one model year. ....it just struck me as odd.
While I still personally don't care as much for them, there's a WHOLE lot of difference in an 04 and and 05. Much 'better' engine. Better transmissions. Way better suspension. Much better at NVH. etc. The list goes on.
One thing I will say is that I feel like with the new '13, I need to do nothing to this car out of the box. Of course, I eventually will, but I agree that the S197 platform is a better starting point.
Still, I loved my New Edge GT. It was gutsy and tough, and it was awesome-looking. It hung in there for many thousands of mostly trouble-free miles, and was quite fast enough for its day.
A bit off-topic and I know I am preaching to the choir here, but I never understood the panning in the press that the SN-95 platform took the last few years. The point that they missed is that most Mustang buyers are not comparison shopping the way Consumer Reports would have you believe everyone is. We know what we want and don't really give a crap if our neighbor's ride is technically a "more refined" car; we'll throw on a few mods and stomp him in a straight line all day long, and look good doing it!
I think the same goes for the S197 in a sense. Now that everyone is waiting for the '15, the journalists are stepping up their criticism of the current model. It'll be interesting to see the price spread on my '13 vs a new '15 down the line a bit.
Kinda how most of the car rags criticize the Mustang for still having a solid axle. Never mind the fact that it's beating other IRS equipped cars handily around the track...some of which are noted for their superior handling (BMW M3 anyone?).....yet they just can't concede that the solid axle may not be nearly as bad as they've painted it to be.
It wasn't perfect, but it was very cool and relatively cheap.
It's only my opinion, but these new cars still don't look or sound as good as an 03/04 Mach 1 or Cobra. I doubt they ever will to me.