2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

760 HP. From a Mustang. For $73,000.

Let me put that in context. A Porsche 911 GT3 makes 502 HP and costs $170k. A McLaren Senna makes 789 HP and costs $1 million. The GT500 slots between them in power output and costs less than half of the Porsche. European manufacturers should be embarrassed. They aren't. But they should be.

The Engine That Sounds Like Weather

The 5.2-litre V8 is a flat-plane crank design with a 2.65-litre Eaton supercharger bolted on top. That supercharger is so large it required a bulge in the hood. Ford didn't design around it. They designed over it.

The sound is not a growl. It's not a roar. It's a geological event. You hear this car three blocks before you see it. The supercharger whine sits on top of the V8 rumble like a siren on top of an earthquake. It's the kind of noise that makes dogs bark and car alarms go off in sympathy.

First gear hits like being shoved off a building. The Tremec dual-clutch bangs through shifts with a mechanical fury that makes your neck muscles involuntarily brace. From a standing start to 100 mph takes less time than reading this paragraph.

The Corner Problem

And then you hit a corner. At 4,171 lbs, this is a heavy car pretending to be a sports car. The front end pushes wide under hard braking. The rear steps out with less warning than you'd like. The rear tyres are 305mm wide and they still struggle to contain 760 HP when the road isn't perfectly dry.

The Carbon Fiber Track Pack helps. Wider tyres, Recaro seats, exposed carbon wing, stiffer springs. It turns the GT500 from "terrifying" into "manageable terror." But this is a muscle car that went to finishing school, not a purpose-built track weapon. The finishing school taught it manners. The muscle car underneath still wants to fight.

The Interior Situation

The interior is a Mustang's interior. Ford dressed it up with Alcantara and a flat-bottom wheel, but the infotainment is the same system from the $30k EcoBoost. Same screen. Same software. Same menus. At three times the power, that stings.

The Recaro seats grip you hard enough to leave impressions in your ribs. They're necessary. Under hard acceleration, you need something to prevent you from becoming a passenger in the back seat. The driving position is pure muscle car. Sit low. Reach forward. Feel the hood stretch out ahead of you like the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The numbers that started arguments in every forum on the internet.

For $73k, this is the most absurd performance bargain in the world. Nothing else gives you 760 HP, a flat-plane crank V8, a dual-clutch gearbox, and a warranty. Nothing. You could buy two GT500s for the price of one GT3. You'd have 1,520 HP and still have change for fuel. The fuel economy is atrocious. You'll burn through a tank like it owes you money.

But when you're on an empty highway and you flatten the throttle and the supercharger screams and the back tyres fight for grip and the horizon rushes toward you like it's late for something, you understand why Ford built this car. Not because anyone needed 760 HP in a Mustang. Because they wanted to know what would happen if they tried.

Carroll Shelby would have loved it. Then he would have asked for more power.