What's this?
By some distance, the most powerful road-going car Ford has ever put out. And no, we've not conveniently forgotten the
GT supercar in that opening statement. Just look at the Shelby GT500's figures in the tech spec closely. It makes 771hp and 848Nm of torque. Despite weighing just 3kg shy of 1.9 tonnes and being front-engined, rear-wheel drive, unbelievably it'll still hit 62mph from rest in 3.5 seconds and has to be limited to 180mph. It is an unreal set of numbers for any car, never mind something that's vaguely Mustang-shaped.
Of course, as we said up top, you can't buy it over here. Which is why we were somewhat surprised to see a vibrant lime green example, complete with twin white Daytona stripes draped over its form, sitting in the pits at Goodwood. Actually, this is a touch disingenuous on our part. As we didn't so much see the GT500 first, rather than we
heard it. And, given the astonishing din it was putting out as it ripped around the Sussex racetrack, we're surprised the good people of Birmingham couldn't hear it either. That'll be Birmingham, Alabama, by the way.
Honestly, we don't think we've
ever clapped ears (?) on a production car like the Shelby. It is
scandalous. Bearing in mind Goodwood has strict noise restrictions, the Ford had to run in the quietest of what we believe were four exhaust settings, and even then it triggered the readouts at 112dB. Which is... [COLOURFUL LANGUAGE REDACTED]
loud. Just for good measure, the GT500 was on track at the same time as various Maseratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, BMWs, Lotuses and more, and we'll be straight with you - the only car which got anything like near it in terms of the alluring, cacophonous racket it was making was an
Aventador SVJ Roadster. And even that V12-powered Italian sounded a bit meek in comparison.
So how is the GT500 making such a majestic symphony? Is it just a tuned Coyote 5.0-litre V8 with an aftermarket exhaust slapped onto it? Hardly. In fact, the standard Mustang's superb powerplant is replaced completely, by something that is intimidatingly named the 'Predator' engine. This is not, in fact, an invisible alien being that hunts humans for sport and bleeds luminous green, but it's not far off in terms of the scariness factor. It's a 5.2-litre V8, fitted with a 2.65-litre Roots-type supercharger. It is this combination which allows the GT500 to develop fully 311hp and 319Nm more than the next most potent Mustang model, which is the seriously quick
Mach 1. Imagine that the
BMW M4 Competition had 627hp and 802Nm when compared to an
M440i xDrive Coupe, instead of the 510hp/650Nm it actually does possess, and you get an idea of the shocking power disparity between the GT500 and the rest of its family.
Then there are the looks. You're not going to mistake this for an
EcoBoost with an aftermarket body kit, not in a million years. The GT500 is festooned with the Cobra logos that were a favourite of founder, race-car driver and eponymous company owner Carroll, the link here being that the 427ci (7.0-litre) V8 found in the fabled Shelby Cobra was a Ford lump; thank Carroll Shelby's connection with Le Mans and the GT40 for that. Anyway, over the decades since they first appeared in 1965, various hot GT350 and GT500 Mustangs have been known as 'Cobras' so the 2021 edition follows suit and lets you know fine well about it in the process.
It's not the multitudinous snake motifs that make it stand out, however, but the ludicrously aggressive and utterly brilliant bodywork instead. The huge air intakes at the front, that cartoonishly bulging bonnet complete with a slatted vent, the snarling face, the enormous side skirts and splitters and spoiler, the same diffuser you'd find on a Mach 1 (it was developed for the GT500 first, though); it all adds up to a Mustang that looks like it's a few measly stickers away from being ready for a GT4 race. Frankly, if you're a fan of the Pony Car anyway (and we are), then the GT500 is fever-inducing in terms of its aesthetics.
The cabin's not quite as impressive, although it's a long way from being bad. The Shelby has some serious Recaro bucket seats and an Alcantara wheel complete with another Cobra emblem (and there's yet another hooded reptile hissing at you from the passenger-side dash plaque), but it's broadly the same within as a 5.0 GT. There is an $18,000 pack in its home market which deletes the rear seats and clothes the exterior in lots of carbon fibre, to the extent that even the 20-inch wheels are made of the stuff, but the car roped into doing a demonstrator tour of Europe wasn't equipped with that bundle so it raises the hilarious prospect of stuffing a couple of your unwitting mates in the back of the Ford, whereupon you could both thoroughly terrify and partially deafen them as the 771hp Mustang goes through the motions.
How does it drive?
We had to wear an open-face helmet for laps of the track in the Shelby GT500 but even so, the gargantuan, serrated bellow of its 5.2-litre V8 managed to pierce our eardrums nonetheless. And
what a noise it is. It is tremendous. It is fantastic. It is all the things you want a naughty American supercharged V8 to sound like, only amplified to borderline health-hazard levels.
This ferocious wall of noise only accentuates just how preposterously fast the GT500 is. Make no mistake, the way it brutalises physics on its unapologetic way from 100-150mph in the blink of an eye thoroughly differentiates it from any other Mustang we've been in. It is at three-figure speeds where the 600-, 700hp-plus cars truly make their extra potency known when compared to the 'Very Fast Cars' which sit in the 300-600hp bracket, and the GT500 is no exception to this rule. Goodwood is a high-speed circuit around the perimeter of an airfield, but - if anything - it felt a bit pokey and enclosed for the seismic power of the Shelby.
What's so utterly astounding about this thing, though, is that it is in no way unhinged in the coherence of its engine and its chassis, and of all its major controls. You do not shy away from the GT500's throttle pedal, fearing some kind of automotive Armageddon as the goliath 315-section rear tyres struggle to cope with the sheer forces being sent their way by a seven-speed dual-clutch Tremec transmission; instead, you sit there, slack-jawed in amazement, at how much of that prodigious grunt the Ford can effectively channel to dry tarmac. This is a really, really,
really well-sorted car, the Shelby, and not some old-fashioned American stereotype of an awful lot of displacement in a rudimentary chassis.
Like the Mach 1 which borrows so much of its componentry, the GT500 feels taut and alert in the corners, not lazy and fat. The front end on it is sensational, even better than the track-focused model we'll get as our Mustang pinnacle in Europe. We've never been in a transatlantic car which feels as alive and eager at the nose as this one, save for possibly the hyper-specialist, mega-expensive GT supercar from the same company. Despite all that weight sitting over its nose, you get precious little understeer in the Shelby and an immense amount of bite from its leading rubber. Seriously uprated subframes and suspension ensure that the body is kept on an even keel and the diff-equipped rear axle is never spiky. Mind, we'd like to try driving one in the wet. That'd be... fun, in much the same way that tombstoning is probably fun too. Riiiiiight up until you get it wrong.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that, amidst all the furious V8 and supercharger shrieking, and the ballistic pace, and the meaty, informative steering and mighty brakes and incredible cornering ability, we found the Shelby GT500 to be a far, far, far more capable vehicle on track than we would have ever given it credit for, when looking at its hench form and its likeable-if-soft Mustang source material. This thing is proof positive that, when they put their minds to it, the Americans can make a driver's car that is every bit as talented, as edifying and as thrilling as the ones cooked up by we Europeans. It's just a crying shame that the engineers from the States' best efforts will never make it over here.
Verdict
We're unlikely to ever get another go in a Ford Shelby GT500, unless we decide to emigrate to America with $72,900 in our sweaty mitts, such money on our person for the sole purpose of buying one of these mega-Mustangs and then living in it for the rest of our natural days. But the memory of the bravura performance of the GT500 will stay with us forever more. A quite belting piece of megalomaniacal machinery, while we're to be denied the pleasure of the Shelby's company long-term, we are at least completely delighted that such a demonic vehicle can even be summoned forth into our earthly realm in the first place.
Interior Ambience
Passenger Space
