First Drive: 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

Lots of cars have angry eyebrows. Not that many cars have the moves to back them up. But the 2020 Shelby Mustang GT500 does and its very angry indeed. Even when painted in a jovial shade of safety-cone orange, the leering face bristles with vents, scoops, spoilers, and splitters. The very first second you fire it up you realize that the multi-mode exhaust has no fewer than four settings but they only range from antisocial to jet-engine. It wasnt built to make friends.It was built to be the ultimate performance Mustang. And with 760 horsepower, its far and away the most powerful Mustang ever built. Two of Steve McQueens rowdiest 1968 GT390s would still need a Mustang II stacked on top to equal the power of the mad supercharged 5.2L V8. Remember those this is your brain on drugs ads? Well this is your 5.2L GT350 Voodoo engine on copious amounts of boost. The bones of the same captain-insane-o flat-plane-crank V8 that we adored in the GT350 has been treated to a healthy dose of Roots blower which pushes 12 psi of go-fast squeeze through the mill. It makes 620 lb.-ft. and will rev out to 7,500 RPM. The engine is a treasure. We will be talking about this engine 25 years later as one of the mechanical greats. It revs, it pulls, its linear, and boy is it mean. The idle has an off-key warble like a V10 Viper thanks to the cross-plane-crank breathing through one intake plenum. Its everything you loved about the GT350 motor but with more of everything everywhere.Coupled to this engine exclusively is a paddle-shift-equipped seven-speed dual-clutch Tremec automatic. I can hear the pitter patter of #savethemanuals typers already, but honestly, the average human and buyer will not be able to shift fast enough to keep up with 760 hp. The shift points come at you faster than the music notes in Guitar Hero when you try to play Iron Maiden at full difficulty. The paddle is an honestly welcome companion to the GT500 engine and the shifts are absolutely fierce when you need them to be. Otherwise, it seems content to waft you along and seamlessly shift around in traffic. Its a very good transmission. Every bit as good as that transmission is the suspension tuning. The GT500 is fully aerodynamically optimized and that combined with just honestly good suspension engineering make the GT500 not as scary to drive as you might think. The magnetorheological suspension is not too harsh and jouncy on real roads. Sport mode is just about perfect for fast driving. The steering lacks feel compared to what youd find in a Porsche 718 or even across town in a Camaro. But the weight feels right and the entire package inspires tons of driving confidence. And youll want confidence when youre piloting 760 hp around.When you slap the accelerator down in a Hellcat, all kinds of amusing and terrifying things happen. The tires light up and the car goes sideways no matter what speed youre already doing. Its fun in the same way that base jumping is. But the Mustang simply rears up on those 315 section tires and explodes forward. Mat the gas at any speed above first gear and it just moves out like no muscle car youve ever seen, accompanied with a wild banshee wail. Lots of muscle cars have big power but the GT500 lets you use that power pretty much anywhere. 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Clayton Seams The cabin is nothing to write home about. You sit in a pair of nicely-shaped Recaros but those are the only seats youll find inside. The rears have been replaced with a little bit of foam. The GT500 is a true two-seater. Though it may cost a full $94,675 in Canada, the door panels, dashboard pad, and console are made from the very same materials youd find in a humble four-cylinder Mustang. But if youre buying this car, you know exactly where your money has been spent. Your money went to fund all the amazing pieces that transform the Mustang into a 100-percent capable track car. And frankly, I dont know where youd find more performance capability for under $100,000.Despite its angry face and its back-off exhaust tone, the GT500 is actually friendly to drive once you wrap your head around the sheer speed of it. Its the GT2 RS to the GT350s GT3. The manually-shifted GT350 is more pure and is the true drivers car of the two. The GT350 also has just that extra little bit of hard-edge sound thanks to its sky-high 8,200 RPM redline. Which is the better car? Well, frankly, the GT350 may be ticket fast but the GT500 is jail fast. The 350 is ideally suited for canyon carving and fast road driving. And while you can canyon carve the GT500, it wants for something more. The GT500 deserves a racetrack to be let loose on, and a big one at that. Then you can show all the other cars how angry it can truly
Origin: First Drive: 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

News Roundup: The heaviest GT500, a US$20M auction mistake and Trump’s latest auto tirade

The all-new Shelby GT500–the pinnacle of any pony car ever engineered by Ford Performance–delivers on its heritage with more than 700 horsepower for the quickest street-legal acceleration and most high-performance technology to date ever offered in a Ford Mustang.Ford Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.The new Shelby Mustang GT500 is going to be heavy in all senses of the wordThe 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500 is the heaviest Mustang of all time. According to Ford’s dealership guide eSourceBook, the 760-horsepower GT500 will have a curb weight of 4,225 lbs (1,916 kg). Pushing that chunky coupe is a 5.2-litre V8 that pumps power through to the rear wheels via a brand-new Tremec seven-speed dual-clutch auto. There are some ways to lighten it up a bit, like by adding the Carbon-Fiber Track Pack, which cuts out the rear seat. Trump freaks out over automakers siding with California on fuel-efficiency regulationsThe Commander-in-Chief in charge of the the most powerful nation on earth is at it again. This week, Trump lashed out at automakers – via Twitter, of course – over fuel-efficiency requirements. “My proposal to the politically correct Automobile Companies would lower the average price of a car to consumers by more than $3000, while at the same time making the cars substantially safer,” he wrote. The outburst was allegedly caused by news that auto giants including BMW, Ford, VW and Honda had come to an agreement to better the efficiency of their cars through 2026, using Obama-era mandated-in-California rules as their template. Auctioneers blew it with the sale of Ferdinand’s Porsche’s Nazi car The 1939 Porsche Type 64, the only remaining example of one of the ancestors of the marque, was supposed to go up for auction at the recent RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale, and expected to fetch around US$20 million. But, when the auctioneer accidentally started bidding at US$30 million, it drew cheers and laughs from the crowd, especially as bidding quickly rose to US$70 million. That’s when the auctioneer clarified he’d apparently been saying thirteen, not thirty – as in US$13 million – and fourteen, not forty, etc., which caused some auction-goers to walk out and the sale to stall right there on the docket. Something tells us that may have been that auctioneer’s final event.Here’s what the Ram EcoDiesel will costAvailable on all trims in Ram’s 1500 series is the new EcoDiesel option, currently the best-in-class for torque, with 480 lb.-ft. What would you pay for that grunt? Now we know what Ram thinks it’s worth. The EcoDiesel V6 costs $5,800 above the standard Pentastar V6 eTorque in Big Horn and Tradesman, and $3,900 over the Sport, Rebel, Longhorn, Laramie and Limited’s 5.7-litre HEMI V8. Watch for the EcoDiesel badge to start appearing on roads this fall. Toronto drivers play soccer in gridlock trafficWhen all lanes closed on the busy 401 highway near Toronto this week, vehicles came to a complete standstill — but not all drivers did. Two men, one in a suit and the other in jeans and a t-shirt, got out of their cars to take advantage of a bit of open ashphalt in front of a city bus and kick around a soccer ball. A video of the friendly game was posted to a 401 trucker Twitter account. Watch it
Origin: News Roundup: The heaviest GT500, a US$20M auction mistake and Trump’s latest auto tirade

2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 goes, stops quickly in a straight line

The 2020 Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang in new Grabber LimeFord Ford is still keeping a few secrets about the upcoming Mustang Shelby GT500, but we now know the zero-100-zero time, and its wild.Although this metric is rarely used, the new GT500 with its 760 horsepower and 625 lb.-ft. of torque, can sprint to 100 km/h from a standing start and back down to zero in just 10.6 seconds.Most of this is due to the 5.2-litre supercharged V8 engine, but there are other factors at play here. The Michelin Sport Pilot Cup 2 tires help get all the power from the engine onto the ground without smoking the tires, and the available carbon fibre wheels keep rotating mass to a minimum. Thats all well and good, but the time wouldnt be as impressive if the GT500 didnt stop well, but the 16.5 inch brakes on the front wheels Ford says theyre the largest of any domestic sports coupe certainly help. Another critical factor in the search for the quickest times is what actually sends the power from the engine to the rear wheels. With the GT500, a dual-clutch automatic is the only option, but in Sport mode, it can over-torque shifts for uninterrupted power delivery similar to old-school power shifting, where the gas pedal stays firmly planted on the floor during shifts.The rear axle is a 3.73:1 Torsen limited-slip unit with stronger half -shafts. The 3.73 is actually quite mild, so its possible the GT500 could go even faster with a 4.11, or even a 3.90.While the numbers are impressive, it still is not a true zero-to-100 km/h time, leaving some numbers a mystery for
Origin: 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 goes, stops quickly in a straight line

News Roundup: Boat on highway causes waves of puns, 2020 Shelby GT500 gets priced, and Rivian keeps on poaching

Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.A police photo of a boat blocking a Toronto highway has turned into a national caption contestCaption? This boat ended up on #Hwy407 at Dixie Rd tonight. No one hurt. #HappyCanadaDay pic.twitter.com/rDU3sePzJ7 Sgt Kerry Schmidt (@OPP_HSD) July 2, 2019When Ontario police got a call about a boat blocking a lane-and-a-half of traffic on the GTA’s 407 ETR Highway on Canada Day, they knew just what to do: Snap a photo and post it to Twitter, obviously. The OPP’s official Twitter account shipped out a photo of the mid-size motorboat beached in the left lane, calling for the public to caption it. And the public, Driving.ca’s commenters included, did not disappoint. There were a ship-ton of boat puns, some fun Photoshop work, and a few solid references to Gilligan’s Island, which it turns out is still the most relevant piece of nautically-themed pop culture. The 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500’s price tag nears six digitsFord has released pricing for the upcoming Mustang Shelby GT500, the most powerful Mustang ever made. The 2020 Shelby GT500 will go for $94,675 in Canada, which isn’t what the kids would call ‘el cheapo’. However, it’s a lot of car, with “the most torque-dense V8 ever,” according to the brand, good for 625 lb.-ft. of torque alongside 760 horses. Should you care to spend even more on mechanized muscle, Ford is happy to accommodate. There’s the Carbon Fibre Track Package that adds bare carbon-fibre 20-inch wheels and racing tires, a GT4 adjustable wing and more; or, for a little less, the Handling Package with a Gurney flap rear spoiler and front splitters. A hearse driver with a corpse in back argues right to use HOV laneA headline out of Nevada is serving as a reminder to funeral employees that if you’re going to use the HOV lane, your passenger has to have a pulse. When Nevada highway patrol pulled over a Dodge Grand Caravan traveling in the HOV lane with what appeared to be a sole occupant in the vehicle, they were met with an interesting argument by its driver. There was a passenger, the local funeral home employee told the officer—they just weren’t in a seat, rather in a casket in the back. Clever, but not technically legal. The driver was let off with a warning.What do truck nuts really say about a driver? There are many offensive and unnecessary ways to decorate your car, from the classic bumper sticker to gawd-awful accessories like headlight eyelashes, but king among them in terms of outrageousness are the truck testicles, a.k.a. TruckNutz. Now, columnist Lorraine Sommerfeld isn’t a fan of most car decorations, believing decor should be saved for the home, but she’s especially turned off by the dropping sacks that adorn the rear hitch of some of the world’s least discerning driver’s vehicles. So, if you own a set of TruckNutz and have an actual good reason why you feel the need to set them swinging from your F-150 – other than “balls, tee hee” – she wants to hear from you. We all do. Rivian can’t stop, won’t stop poaching employeesThe race to the world’s first long-range electric pickup truck is a hungry one. In an attempt to fight to the top of the pile, EV startup Rivian has been steadily leeching employees from automotive and tech competitors like Tesla, Ford, McLaren and especially Faraday Future. Since last spring, the Michigan-based company has doubled its number of staff, with nearly 50 engineers and other staff coming over from the struggling EV brand Faraday Future, many of whom had been furloughed by the company. The latest big hire made by Rivian, however, was of an Apple employee. Mike Bell, who helped bring the first-gen iPhone to market, will serve as Rivian’s first CTO. The 2019 Mazda MX-5 is the same old Miata we love, only now with more powerFun. That’s the Mazda MX-5 Miata’s modus operandi. Always has been. That’s why, when the previous-gen MX-5 (aka the NC) hit roads with a bigger body and a less powerful engine, some fans were… we won’t say disappointed, but confused. This year, though, Mazda has decided to clear things up with a return to the nimble nature and a boost of 26 horsepower. The 2019 MX-5 Miata once again plays to its strengths with a spirited four-cylinder engine, spot-on chassis and a host of other performance upgrades that make this generation one of the G.O.A.T.s. As reviewer Nick Tragianis notes, “On a tight, serpentine road, the Miata is more of the same, but better.”The 2019 Ford Ranger narrowly misses Top Safety Pick award at IIHS crash testsIt was the darned headlights. Thanks to a “marginal” rating given to the lamps, the 2019 Ford Ranger just missed the Top Safety Pick at this year’s IIHS safety tests. But it still did pretty well, earning a “superior” for front crash prevention, “good” for five
Origin: News Roundup: Boat on highway causes waves of puns, 2020 Shelby GT500 gets priced, and Rivian keeps on poaching

The Shelby Mustang GT500 will cost almost $100k in Canada

The 2020 Shelby Mustang GT500 will have 760 horsepower

2020 Ford Mustang GT500Ford The 2020 Shelby Mustang GT500 was revealed five months ago with the promise of extreme aerodynamics; a new dual-clutch gearbox; and an engine that would deliver more than 700 horsepower.So, sure, Ford warned usbut we didnt expect the final production engine to have almost 800 ponies.Yes, the new GT500 will make a ton of horsepower.Some 760 to be exact, and 625 lb.-ft. of torque to go along with it, which is leaps and bounds over almost everything else in the field.The top Chevrolet Camaro, Corvette and Dodge Challenger Hellcat all fall behind the new Shelby, save for the Hellcat Redeye. Even some exotics cant catch up, like the Porsche 911 GT2RS, and the Ferrari F8 Tributo. The all-new 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500 will produce 760 horsepower and 625 lb.-ft. of torque, making it the most powerful street-legal Ford ever – with the most power- and torque-dense supercharged production V8 engine in the world. Ford Of course, it isnt likely the GT500 will be able to stack up to the likes of the Ferrari and the Porsche, but with a dual-clutch transmission that can shift in less than 100 milliseconds and aero that can provide almost 550 pounds of downforce, Ford looks like its gunning for the big boys once again.Ford uses the 5.2-litre V8 from the GT350 as a starting point (but not the flat-plane-crank R version) and adds a supercharger to give it the extra oomph. The extra power should help the GT500 run a sub-11-second quarter-mile timeat least, thats what Ford says. The zero-to-100-km/h time is still not being revealed, but were sure it isnt too high.Pricing has still not been released, but if we know Ford plans to overdeliver on the horsepower, perhaps itll also give the 2020 Shelby GT500 a nice
Origin: The 2020 Shelby Mustang GT500 will have 760 horsepower