2020 Shelby GT500 touted by Ford as fastest Mustang ever
This, says Ford, is the fastest street-legal Mustang it has ever produced. The company won’t say exactly how fast — or even how powerful — the new Shelby GT500 will be, but the numbers Ford is willing to stand by are pretty darned impressive.
For instance, the 2020 Mustang GT500 will hit 60 miles an hour (96 km/h) in under 3.5 seconds. It also will cut the quarter-mile timing lights in less than 11 seconds. That is all thanks to its 5.2-litre supercharged V8 pumping out “more than” 700 horsepower. How much more, the company’s not saying, but some think the big GT is undergoing some last-minute tweaks so Ford can guarantee it can out-dyno Dodge’s 707-hp Challenger Hellcat.
Better yet, it looks like the new Shelby also will be an excellent sports car — as opposed to just a straight-line demon — thanks to some technology transfer from the Ford’s GT supercar and the Mustang GT4 racing program. These benefits include — and this, I suspect, will upset more than a few traditionalists — the segment’s first seven-speed, dual-clutch paddle-shifted transmission. On the handling side, Ford says that, thanks to its race-bred chassis, custom Michelin tires and the largest front brake rotors ever available on an American sports car, the Shelby will have the fastest track times and the best cornering of any domestic coupe.
The details behind all these superlatives read like a what’s what of motor racing technology. The 2.65-L roots-type supercharger, for example, was inverted so it and the air-toliquid intercooler could be tucked neatly in the V8’s engine valley. Along with highflow cylinder heads, upgraded forged connecting rods and wide-arc cylinder liners, the oil pan has a new, patented baffle system in anticipation of all that synthetic oil sloshing about more than normal. More controversially, the new Shelby is the first Mustang with a paddle-shifted transmission, the Tremec dualclutch seven capable of shifting gears in less than 100 milliseconds. So yes, Mustang traditionalists, there will be no stick offered … or needed.
On the chassis front, the GT combines revised suspension geometry, next-gen active MagneRide suspension and some specially designed Michelin Pilot tires — either Sport S or Sport Cup 2 depending on the package ordered — to deliver the highest-ever lateral acceleration from a Mustang. The larger brakes are some whopping 420-millimetre front rotors coupled with Brembo six-piston calipers.