It's the most powerful street-legal car to ever leave a Ford factory.
Ford has just revealed some new performance specs for the upcoming Mustang Shelby GT500. And while it looks like it’s going to be impressively quick, in both go and whoa, we think it’s going to be slower than the new Corvette.
It’s the most powerful street-legal car to ever leave a Ford factory. That’s 760 hp from a 5.2L supercharged V8. Ford calls it the most power and torque-dense supercharged V8 in the world. Which is a direct shot across the bow of the Dodge Demon. Which makes more power but also needs an extra litre of displacement to do it. The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, which makes five fewer ponies, still needs an extra litre.
So how quick is it with all that power? Ford says that the GT500 will be able to run from 0-162 km/h (100 mph) and back to 0 again in 10.6 seconds. It might sound like an odd number, but the 0-100-0 test has a very long history with Shelby.
It was no less than Carroll Shelby himself who touted the ability of the original Cobra 427 to get from a stop to the ton and back to a stop again quicker than anything else. In fact, the tiny car with a monster of a big-block V8 could achieve the feat in around 14 seconds. And that’s on tires that wouldn’t be fit for an economy car by modern standards.
How does the GT500 start and stop so quickly? The new Tremec seven-speed dual-clutch transmission doesn’t hurt. Able to bang shifts faster than any driver could with three pedals. It can get the next gear in as little as 80 milliseconds.
Getting the new quickest Mustang stopped are 16.5-inch front brake rotors. That’s large pizza size, and 420 or so mm. Ford calls the massive brakes the largest of any domestic sports coupe.
Ford wants you to know more about that gearbox, too. Like how it has more clutch surface area in the odd-numbered gears. So there’s plenty of meat when you launch. It’s a wet clutch, but the system only gets it wet when things get hot. So there’s less loss and more power to the wheels.
It’s also not set up for the fastest shifts all the time. “Contrary to popular belief, fast shifts do not always equate to better road performance,” said Ford Performance powertrain manager Pat Morgan. “In every driving situation, we emulated what professional drivers do, whether it’s a smooth, precise heel-and-toe shift of a professional track driver or a much more forceful powershift like drag racers. We’ve designed the perfect shift every time.”
While the 0-100-0 figure is steeped in Ford performance history, there might be another reason why the automaker’s given us that number and not the more common 0-100 km/h time. Because even with all that power, it might not be quicker than the upcoming C8 Corvette. We’ll have to wait and see.
Keyword: New Mustang Shelby GT500 Goes From Zero to Stunting to Zero Faster Than This Link can Load