Sorry, it wasn't a homemade job or a factory fluke... an auto-equipped Cobra, but rather I was limping home a '93 that suffered a broken clutch cable. But I must say the experience was a driving lesson. I always knew it was possible to drive clutchless, but it wasn't something I ever tried. Yesterday I acquired the skill.
When the cable let go I was rolling up to the last traffic light in a nearby city just before the road becomes a divided 20-mile stretch of highway to my city. I step on the clutch and suddenly BAM the pedal sinks to the floor. I flick on the hazards, roll the car into the early part of a left turn lane and then ponder what to do next. Not crazy about having my car towed or flat-bedded, I decide to finish the drive home clutchless. I start trying to force the shifter into first gear and the car sssslllloooowwwwlllyyy starts to move. I look in my rear view searching for the largest opening in traffic I can find. I see a good size space, and with my hazard lights still on, I ease back into traffic. Needless to say creeping along at less than 5 mph in a
45 it doesn't take long for traffic to close my opening. Looking in my rear view and see a guy bearing down on me while yakking on his cell phone. Just before I cringe expecting a rear-end collision, I see the front-end of his car nose dive as he finally gets on the brakes. Barely missing me, he swerves around, beeps the horn, flips me off, then resumes his telephone conversation as he continues down the road obviously mostly oblivious to what is in front of him. Idiot!Eventually the shifter fully snicks into first gear and I'm up to a sprinter's pace -- a 335 first and 3.55 rear gears doesn't give you a lot of flexibility on the highway. But just happy to be under power, and not wanting to risk forward mobility, I continue my trek home in first gear traveling as far over to the right side of the blacktop highway as I can get with my flashers still flashing.
After about 5 minutes I grow tired of creeping down the highway. As I approach a long downhill, I decide to chance it and I pull it out of first and hope I can find a higher gear. As the car picks up speed on the downhill slope in neutral, I start trying to force the shifter into third gear. Bingo, got it! So I wind out third gear and then hope for fourth. Got fourth. Hey, this isn't so hard. After the highway driving, I navigate through a little city traffic, timing most of the traffic lights, and finally get the clutchless Cobra home.
21 years of Fox Mustang ownership, and I'm still yet to get stranded. Score another one for Ford!Patrick