Story by Jack Baruth, photographs by Jack Baruth and Ford
Highway 1 is Northern California’s “Shoreline Highway”. Green hills to the right, blue water to the left, blue sky above, blue Mustang surrounding me. Second gear in the 2010 Shelby Mustang GT500 reaches above the speed limit on pretty every road in the United States, and it gets there quickly. Traffic ahead but the road doubles back along the coast and I can see the gap. So… See the gap, apply the throttle, make the pass. With a muted supercharger whine, the big blue snake lights both rear tires and transports me to redline in the space of thought. Time for third, I think. It’s good for One. Oh. Eight. Or thereabouts. And it, too, arrives with a tire-spinning fanfare. Across the crown of the road and the “Botts dots” send the rear end wagging. Left. Right. Left. Power is still on. The oscillation is violent but it’s as regular as a grandfather clock. The shift light flashes: a bright red “SVT” logo. Let’s settle it down. Let’s reach for fourth. And that, dear reader, is where we must draw the curtain. For now, anway.
We know the GT500 is fast. In its previous incarnation, we pedaled one around MSR Houston just as quickly as a Lotus Elise. It takes a lot to get a two-ton, iron-block, traditional ponycar around a road course at Lotus velocities, and Ford’s SVT division knows the secret formula to make it happen. But this time, the Blue Oval boys are promising more than just raw speed for the revised GT500. By applying a series of incremental improvements and changes to the platform, many of which were previewed in the mega-buck GT500KR, Ford believes that it has created a pony which is both powerful and refined. “You’ll get some track time,” we were told, “but it’s on the road that you’ll see the real difference in the new car.”
Oh, there’s that phrase. “New car.” Exactly how “new” is the 2010? We covered many of the differences in our 2010 Mustang GT test, but the Shelby is, in fact, more heavily revamped than the normally aspirated models. Not only does it benefit from all of the “regular” changes, there’s far more differentiation between it and the cooking GT than there was in the previous model. Ahead of the A-pillar, only the fenders are shared with regular Mustangs. A new bonnet design addresses the problem of “hood shake”, while Shelby-specific bodywork can be found from the unique nose to the faux-diffuser surrounding the four-inch exhaust tips. The rear badge is applied with wide letter spacing in true Sixties style, a minor touch which required a fair amount of production-line engineering to accomplish. Ford’s worked very hard on the Shelby’s detailing. The overall effect is a visual home run: cohesive, trim, and unbelievably aggressive, all at once. And there’s more to see once you open the door.
Continue reading 2010 Mustang Shelby GT500 First Drive: Even faster, but not as furio… angry.
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