Oh good gracious me, how is this sort of thing even legal?
Here’s the latest mad salvo in the pony car wars, a flared-out Mustang with a V-8 that sounds like somebody put the Game of Thrones dragons into a Cuisinart.
It’s called the Mustang Shelby GT350, which is a lot of names. But then again, this is a lot of car. At 520 horsepower, it has the most powerful naturally aspirated engine to ever leave the Ford factory. It only comes with a manual transmission. It’s got massive Brembo brakes, super sticky Michelin Super Sports, and looks like it got bitten by a radioactive gorilla.
However, before we get too excited, the Shelby Mustangs of the modern era have been a bit over-sauced. The GT500 was simply too powerful for its own good, which made it hilarious, but wildly unbalanced. Ford promises us this new one is the real deal, a return to the spec racer roots of the 1960s original. We shall see. Er, to the extent that is legal.
Design
The current Mustang is a handsome beast, especially in Guard Green with the performance package. This thing is something else entirely, its bodywork rippling as if incapable of containing the power housed within. This is what Dwayne Johnston would look like if he were a Mustang. And hey, rally stripes!
The bulging hood and widened flanks aren’t just for show. There’s plenty of carbon fibre here, and the ‘Stang actually had its bonnet snugged down for better aerodynamics. Nineteen-inch alloys are shod in the aforementioned Michelins, which are so sticky they always seem to have little pebbles studding them.
It’s not what you’d call subtle, but it does look pretty special. Kids especially stop to turn and stare. Not since the Boss 302 has a Mustang garnered this much attention – that’s a double-edged sword.
Environment
If a BMW M4 owner gets a chance to stick his head inside this thing, he’ll come away distinctly unimpressed. Welcome to Mustangville, with an interior that seems even more shabby than the standard ‘Stang. Everything is flat, and the plastics are hard and look cheap. The dials for the radio and the buttons for the HVAC are exactly the same as you’ll get on your next rental V-6 Mustang. It doesn’t look special at all.
But it is honest. There’s no flashy chrome, no fake carbon fibre, no ridiculously coloured seatbelts.
“We spent our budget on go-fast stuff,” says the Shelby’s interior, and you believe it. There are functional gauges for things like oil temperature, and the Sync multifunction display is workable after a bit of a learning curve.
Really, there are only four things to care about in here. The deeply bolstered seats snugly wrap around you, but are a bit more capacious than the Recaro units found in other performance Fords. The suede-wrapped steering wheel fits snugly into your hands. The digital instrument panel shows a host of different functions.
And lastly, there’s that red starter button, just waiting to be pushed. Go on then.
Performance
A lot of ink has been spilled about the Shelby’s heartbeat, a 5.2-litre V-8 making 526 h.p. and 429 foot-pounds of torque. Those figures are impressive enough, but what really gets the gearheads revved up is the “Voodoo” V-8’s crazy-high 8,250 r.p.m. redline, made possible by its unique crankshaft.
In a normal V-8, like that in your 5.0-litre Mustang, staring along the barrel of your crankshaft will show you a plus sign configuration. This lets the pistons cycle the crank in quarter impulses, which is easier to balance.
The Voodoo’s crank is flattened out, so the pistons pump up and down in two banks, pummeling away like an MMA fighter that’s got somebody on the mat. The advantage is higher revs, which is great for the track. It also comes with a
hilarious soundtrack.
At idle, the Shelby barks to life with a roiling, rolling gurgle that’s unlike any other V-8. It’s more metallic than the burble of a Hemi, and more bass than a Ferrari. It sets your skin a-crawlin’.
As the 1,700 kilogram Shelby will sprint to 100 kilometres per hour in around four seconds, you might expect fun times on the street to be brief – and they are. Be happy that the new racetrack on Vancouver Island is open, and that there’s another one coming in the interior soon.
But, at the same time, the Shelby has such a lot of theatre associated with it, that it’s great fun to drive around, whapping through downshifts with the slick-shifting Tremec six-speed as if you were channeling racers like Parnelli Jones. It’s utterly intoxicating, the same sort of rush you get from a Porsche 911 GT3, except at half the price.
Grip is, of course, off the charts, and with its new independent suspension at all four corners, the Shelby is a genuine handler. It’s actually even easy to drive in the wet. But even with all the lateral suction and phenomenal brakes, the takeaway experience is that of the massive, revvy engine. It’s a properly balanced car, but it’s also a lunatic’s special. Well done, Ford.
Features
Sync is standard, as is a host of track-special gauges and readouts. You can track everything from your lap times to the temperature of air coming into your intake manifold. On the street, probably the most useful thing is the digital speedometer, as the standard gauge is a bit tricky to read. At $63,788 before options and freight, you’re mostly paying for the performance.
Fuel economy? Who cares? OK fine, the official figures are 16.9 (litres/100 kilometres) city and 11.0 highway.
Green light
Sound and fury; proper track-focused purpose; outstanding thrust to redline; still carries kids and cargo like a regular Mustang.
Stop sign
Bargain-level interior; the existence of speed limits.
The checkered flag
It probably shouldn’t be legal to pack this much fun into a car.
Competition
Camaro SS: A predictable rival, the new Camaro ($43,000) isn’t yet here in the Z/28 package that will be the Mustang’s natural enemy. However, we can get a little taste of what things might be like with the new LT package, which gives the Camaro nearly the same performance figures as the Corvette.
Frankly, Ford should be worried, but that’s just the way the back-and-forth goes in the pony car wars. Really, the one-upmanship is just good for us gearheads.
