Tech: CDC Performance Grille

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Tech: CDC Performance Grille

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Get GT500 style and better cooling for your 2013-2014 Mustang with CDC’s Performance Grille

By Steve Turner
Photos courtesy of Classic Design Concepts

It’s no secret that Ford designers borrowed a few styling cues from the Shelby GT500 when they refreshed the late S197 styling on the 2013-2014 Mustang. We aren’t complaining. The cars look great, and the keen Mustang fans can easily differentiate between GTs and GT500s despite the front-end similarities.

Here’s what your GT will look like with its new Performance Grille. The kit comes complete with everything you need for the installation; right down to the pushpin, zip ties, and instructions. It fits all 2013-2014 Boss, California Special, V6, and GT models.
Here’s what your GT will look like with its new Performance Grille. The kit comes complete with everything you need for the installation; right down to the pushpin, zip ties, and instructions. It fits all 2013-2014 Boss, California Special, V6, and GT models.

Now, since the Mustang GT wasn’t designed to exceed 200 mph—in stock form, anyway—it didn’t get a wide-open grille like its powerful cousin. Now, if you like the wide-open look and want it for your GT, Classic Design Concepts offers a direct-replacement grille with a similar style—the CDC Performance Grille (PN 1311-7000-01; $249).

Certainly the Performance Grille looks awesome, but it can also help your GT run cooler. Our friend Matt Alderman over at SCT Performance installed one of these grilles in his heavily modded 2014 Mustang GT and he saw a significant drop in engine coolant temps during the heat of the Florida summer.

http://youtu.be/XP5KMaT4yMI

So, the Performance Grille offers form and function. Better yet, you can install it in about an hour, which makes it a great driveway bolt-on.

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9 thoughts on “Tech: CDC Performance Grille”

  1. If CDC would manufacture this grill for the 2007-09 model GT500’s they would sell as fast as they could make them. The factory grill is pretty ugly and terrible to clean/ detail, if CDC decides to make these count me in.

  2. Maybe they think nobody would like to relocate the horns, etc, in order to make it look right, as I can’t figure out why this one wasn’t done long ago. They have the capacity to digitize the ’07-’09 grill perimeter, put it into CAD, sketch up a grille that looks right and simulates that of the ’13-’14, rapid prototype an upper/lower, make a mold(s), and start selling them. It isn’t rocket science and for a company already setup to do it, such as CDC, it isn’t cost prohibitive and my guess is they’d be able to offer this at a reasonable price point and easily meet their break even point quite early.

    Same goes for a ’13-’14 style tail light for an ’07-’09 that isn’t tinted…

    :shrug:

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