Parts coming off in your hands??? Hmmm....... Quite honestly, I've seen owners of cars that basically trash everything and anything they own, the car doesn't stand a chance in hell, it could be a Sherman Tank, and it would fall apart in the hands of some folks. Don't know you at all alan64, and maybe you're a caring owner of your machinery and I'm off base. But I've had plenty of Fox-era Mustangs, and they were all sturdy and bullet-proof. I couldn't KILL my '88 GT convertible, with weekly raping at the dragstrip, and over 100,000 youthful and hard miles on a heavily modified car. It was an anvil, especially considering the butt-a$$-cheap price (relatively speaking). Yeah, they rattled some and the chassis definately had their issues, although with each go around (1987, 1994, 1999) Ford made distinct improvement. But junk?? No, not at all. If that's the case, then EVERYTHING on the market that sold for a similar price was junk also. You just need to buy more expensive cars and quit playing with Mustangs, because as time and progress marches on you'll be trash-talking this new '05 as "junk" just the same..
As for the Z06 vs. C6 question, I'd take the C6. The performance advantage of the Z06 actually proves to be quite minimal, and the price you pay in awful interior, lousy shifter, worse styling, teeth-rattling ride, and boat-anchor depreciation isn't worth the extra 2 tenths and extra .02-.04 g's. Hell, you could probably pick those up with a set of Bilsteins and a cold-air kit. And with the extra displacement, the "potential" pendulum will always swing to the C6's side. The Lotus Elise kind of points out where you wind up when the quest for all-around performance gets way outside of the realm of what you'd want to drive to work every day. No, it's not a straight-line rocket, but you see where I'm going. Everybody has their own threshold of how much is too much to sacrifice just to be a bit quicker.
As for the Z06 vs. C6 question, I'd take the C6. The performance advantage of the Z06 actually proves to be quite minimal, and the price you pay in awful interior, lousy shifter, worse styling, teeth-rattling ride, and boat-anchor depreciation isn't worth the extra 2 tenths and extra .02-.04 g's. Hell, you could probably pick those up with a set of Bilsteins and a cold-air kit. And with the extra displacement, the "potential" pendulum will always swing to the C6's side. The Lotus Elise kind of points out where you wind up when the quest for all-around performance gets way outside of the realm of what you'd want to drive to work every day. No, it's not a straight-line rocket, but you see where I'm going. Everybody has their own threshold of how much is too much to sacrifice just to be a bit quicker.