From Civic to Shelby

For the record, I’m not a car person. When I was shopping for my first car, all I cared about was that it wouldn’t break down on me all the time, didn’t cost too much and looked cute.

But that was before I had a job that has me thinking more about cars than I ever thought I would, so when my boss approached me last week and said he wanted me to drive a Shelby GT500, I knew enough to get excited. And a little nervous.

Now, understand that I drive a ’97 Civic; in its prime it only made 127 hp. The most powerful machine I’d ever been behind the wheel of was my parents’ LeSabre, and that doesn’t even have half the horses the GT500 does. Suddenly, mixed with the thrill of driving what I intellectually knew was a fantastic car, visions of awkward lurches and peel outs began to fill my head.

Of course, by the time reality set in I was already committed, so I sought a few tips from car-guy friends and decided not to worry about it. Then when drive day rolled around, getting out to the GT500 meant spending about an hour and a half negotiating my manual-transmission Civic through gridlocked Chicago traffic, which pretty much killed whatever “driving-is-fun” vibe I still had left.

But that was before I got behind the Shelby’s wheel.

Stay tuned for more of Beth and Dave’s drive in the Shelby GT500. For all of their posts click here.