The Last Live-Axle Shelby GT500 Is Gnarlier Than Any New Ford Mustang (Jalopnik)
Porsche does this thing — I guess Ferrari does it, too — where the brand-new pretty fast medium-spicy sports car of the range goes as fast as the top ultra mega extra spicy supercar of the generation before. It sort of dulls the impact.
This happens all the time in the sports car world. We just cycled through it again the other day. The brand-new Porsche 911 GT3 lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife faster than the Porsche 918. That’s the driver’s-edition sports car of the new generation going as fast as the supercar before it.
It’s always the same story with every new Ferrari 430 Scuderia being as fast as the Enzo before it, on and on, up and down the years.
The lie that is being told with every one of these stories is obvious: The new car that is just as fast as the more expensive higher-tier model that came before it must be just as fast, because it is obviously less special. Less exciting. Less thrilling. We understand that we are being told the new car is as powerful, as fast, as sharp as the supercar that preceded it, because it is all that can be done for a more plain machine.
And this brings us to the Mustang GT500.
I remember when the most recent GT350 came out all the way back in 2015, and magazines like MotorTrend were quick to hype that the newer, lower-tier car was faster than the old, higher-tier GT500. The GT350 was getting it done with less horsepower because it had more modern design, from the tires to the shocks to the independent rear suspension.
I’ve been lucky. I’ve driven this generation of GT350, a GT350R. Other than the time the front tires skated in the rain so much that I thought the car had a faulty lane-keep assist, it was a remarkably sane, sedate car to drive around. It sounded bonkers. It felt special. It just wasn’t in any way unhinged. It was a car that encouraged you to hit a drag strip for the first time, to run out the flat-plane-crank Voodoo engine.
I was even luckier once before. I got handed the keys to a 2014 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, in the middle of Manhattan, on near-bald tires. I had never driven a car like it before. I was terrified.
(photo credit: Ford)
