Alongside the reveal of the tributary Mustang Bullitt, Ford also announced that their much speculated flagship pony car will be returning. The 2019 Mustang Shelby GT500 will be worth the wait, so they say, as the teaser calls back previous big power stallions of the car’s past.
They’re quick to point out that the new car will boast twice the amount of power that the original 1967 performance model offered (the GT390). With a supercharged V8 that produces in excess of 522kW, it will also be the most powerful street-legal production Ford model ever produced.
For reference, the current power king of the Blue Oval’s line-up is their GT supercar, which uses a 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged V6 to generate 482kW and 746Nm. Of course, both cars will make use of their respective reserves of thrust in very different ways. While the GT is engineered to be company’s ultimate technology expression of speed, the Mustang Shelby GT500 will be - presumably - all about intimidation.
Currently, the most high performance version of the sixth-generation Mustang is the GT350R. But rather than it being developed as a true muscle car, Ford instead pursued track performance and precision exhilaration, exhibited through its 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 with a flat-plane crank (as opposed to the usual cross-plane design) that generates 392kW and 582Nm.
That said, it would be nice to see Ford take a slightly different approach here, and combine the pillars of light weight, high downforce, and agile track ability of the GT350 with the a much more powerful motor slotted up front. Judging by the rather large fixed rear wing and front splitter observed in the teaser footage, they’re indeed thinking along similar lines.
In either case, the post-2019 muscle car power wars should be far closer with the 6th-generation Mustang jumping into a possible leading position after spending much of its life behind the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger in terms of raw output.
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