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Ford's in-house Special Vehicle Team (SVT) has collaborated with racing legend Carroll Shelby to produce the all-new GT500, "a modern interpretation of the Shelby Mustang of the 60s".
Shelby first tweaked a Mustang for Ford in the mid 1960s, when he produced the GT-350R; the Shelby Mustangs went on to include the "King of the Road" GT-500KR, with its 428-cu in Cobra Jet V8, and over 14,500 Shelby Mustangs were sold until discontinuation in 1970.
SVT produced some hotted-up Mustangs in the '90s, but they weren't quite the real thing. However, the GT500 now has Shelby acting as a senior consultant, with SVT doing the engineering.
This GT500, to be offered in both convertible and coupe forms, will on sale in the summer with a 5.4-litre V8 supercharged for 475bhp and a six-speed manual gearbox, as used in the Mustang FR500C race car. SVT has retuned and upgraded the shock absorbers, springs, anti-roll bars and brakes, using a number of components from the FR500C.
Of course, a Shelby Mustang would be nothing without the Cobra badge, which is applied in place of the usual pony. Nods to the original Shelby cars come with the wider grille openings and air splitter up front, slanted headlamps, bulging bonnet with heat-extraction ducts, rear spoiler and SVT logos on the wheel centre caps and doorsill plates - adding up to a subtle dressing-up for extra aggression. The coupe is finished off with white stripes, which go nose to tail and along the lower bodyside - though, as in the original ranges, these will not be applied to the rag-top convertible.
The cabin is suitably decked-out, too, with extra-bolstered sports seats, pale-faced instrument dials, aluminium trim instead of chrome, and the speedo and tachometer moved for improved driver information. The leather-upholstered interior comes in charcoal black or charcoal black/crimson red, with snake logos on the seat-backs.
And best of all for muscle car fans, Ford hints strongly that this GT500 is just the first of a whole series of high-performance Mustangs. "SVT is primed for growth with the GT500 serving as the foundation for other performance Mustang projects", says the company. "The GT500 points to a brand-new era in Ford's performance future."
