Need For Speed ? Unlockables ?levels?

[podbicanin 0]

In the cheats section on here and gamefaqs it tells you when you get different unlockables by saying for example complete 10 outruns in level 4. Or sometimes it says stages.What the hell is this? I'm probably about halfway thru the game and have never seen a level or stage screen or anything similar, or even seen the words level or stage mentioned other than 'level 2 engine upgrade' or the like. Could someone tell me wtf I'm missing here, cuz I dunno how to win 27 races in stage 5, if I dunno wtf stage 5 is or where it is etc.Also if anybody could tell me how the Mustang GT is on so many's favorite list please do, cuz mine won't turn. It sux, has the handling of a brick. I turn with it and it barely turns, slow or not, and if I even tap the brakes it doesn't help, the damn thing skips 'no turning' and jumps right into 'wipeout' territory with nothing in between. Thats on default tuner options, I've tried tinkering with it and it still sucks so if anybody could tell me how to fix it that'd be great. I spend like 50k on the damn thing and its not even raceable aside from drags, which theres only like 3 of those in the whole damn game...Maybe I don't have enough parts to take handling up enough for the power of it or something, the green bar for handling is about half, but I don't have any more parts unlocked to take it up, I've got mostly lvl 2 parts for accl and top speed, and only lvl 1 parts for handling, but I still don't see how it should be this bad when the handling bar is only a little bit less than that of my other cars, but the GT is way faster so I want it to work but it won't. No uniques are on it. Mostly because I don't know how to unlock them cuz as I said I don't have a clue as to what stages or levels are in this game when its not a level or stage game, just a bunch of races on a map thats free roam. Plz enlighten me anybody who can.