Ford Dropped Shelby Name Because Of Money

The Shelby has been synonymous with Mustangs for decades. Hell, the S550 had two different Shelby variants: the brilliant Shelby GT350 with naturally aspirated 5.2-liter Voodoo flat-plane crank V8 and the mind-numbingly powerful supercharged Shelby GT500. However, since the S650 Mustang debuted for the 2024 model year, the Shelby name is nowhere to be found, from Ford at least. Sure, the Dark Horse, Dark Horse SC and GTD are sick, but they're not Shelbys. There's a very good reason for that, and it's exactly what you're thinking: money.

Ford has been paying a premium to use the name for decades, and it just doesn't want to anymore, according to a source who spoke with Ford Authority. Contrary to popular belief, Ford doesn't actually own the Shelby name. Those rights belong to Shelby America, and Ford just pays them to use the name.

It's no small cost, either. The Blue Oval was apparently paying about $800 in royalties for each Mustang Shelby it sold, Ford Authority says. When you account for the fact that Ford sold 24,211 Shelby GT350 and GT350Rs during their production run, along with another 14,130 GT500s between 2020 and 2022, that comes out to over $30 million in licensing fees alone, according to Motor1 …

https://www.jalopnik.com/2156382/ford-drops-shelby-name-money/

(photo credit: Ford)