Shelby right

Ford took the wraps off the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 at the 2019 Detroit Motor Show to reveal what it describes as the fastest-accelerating factory Mustang ever built, with the most powerful V8 engine ever offered by Ford in a road car.

The numbers are compelling. The supercharged 5.2-litre V8 (a development of the GT350 engine but without the flat-plane crankshaft) has, Ford claims, “more than 700 horsepower” (522kW). Coincidentally or otherwise, that figure is exactly twice as much power as that of the original Ford Mustang GT500 from 1967.

With that sort of grunt, performance is in the supercar territory. Ford claims the Shelby GT500 is capable of 0-100km/h in the mid three-second bracket, and runs the standing 400 metres in under 11 seconds.

A key contributor to the car’s blistering straight line capability is the seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission – borrowed straight from the Ford GT supercar. Ford has gone down the DCT road with the GT500 purely on the basis that the Tremec-sourced seven-speeder makes for faster shifts than a manual. As for the existing 10-speed auto, it was considered not strong enough to cope with the GT500’s power.

Somewhat controversially then, this fastestever Mustang is not being offered with a conventional manual transmission option. The lack of a conventional manual shift places the GT500 at odds with its Camaro ZL1 and Dodge Challenger Hellcat rivals, which are both available with six-speed manual transmissions. It also might place Ford at odds with those buyers who prefer a ‘traditional’ three-pedal manual arrangement.

To that end, Ford isn’t ruling out a manual trans option in the future. Carl Widmann, head engineer at Ford Performance, says a sixspeeder GT500 might become available in the future if there is sufficient demand from buyers.

While the new GT500 will be significantly faster in a straight line than the GT350 it replaces, it’s also likely to be more refined. It uses the existing GT350 suspension set-up to which Ford’s engineers have fitted lighter front and rear springs combined with the company’s MagneRide adaptive dampers.

Brakes are Brembo, with enormous 420mm two-piece front rotors, said to be the largest yet on any American-made coupe. They run large six-piston callipers.

It comes with a range of drive modes – normal, weather, sport, drag and track – and there’s an optional trackday pack. This includes Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s on 20-inch carbonfibre wheels, adjustable rear wing and rear-seat delete option. There’s also a burn-out-friendly mode and launch control setting.

The bad news, as far as Australia is concerned, is that we are unlikely to see the GT500 in showrooms down under. Right now Ford has no plans to produce the car in right-hand drive form. Ford Australia’s product communications manager Damion Smy has confirmed that unless that situation changes, there is no possibility of Ford Oz selling GT500s.

That, of course, does not necessarily preclude an independent entity undertaking the task of importing, converting and selling GT500s themselves. New legislation, the ‘Road Vehicle Standards Act,’ voted through parliament November last year ahead of implementation in December 2019, has eased the path for wouldbe converters.