Red. Sex. Lips. Sky. Rocks. Wings. Blood. Lust. Heart. Pepper. Sauce. Stop in your tracks. Love letter. It’s red, it’s the 2010 Shelby GT 500 Ford Mustang and it’s waiting for me.
I’ve grown up enchanted by the lore of Carroll Shelby. Perhaps it was my father bragging that Carroll Shelby taught him how to drive like a racer when they worked together at the wind tunnel at the Chrysler Proving Grounds. My dad used to make race car noises with this wicked laugh when he talked about the spunky 1983 GLH Omni, “Vrum Vrum, goes like hell!!!! or the 1987 Daytona, “Shelby, oh yeah!!! The heat is on, dun, dun, dun, the heat is on!!” We had both of these Dodges in the drive way naturally, and I don’t think the Michigan police were so receptive of my dad’s Shelby driving on public roads.
When I finally met Carroll Shelby a few years ago, he claimed to remember my dad — even I was impressed with pops after that. Mr. Shelby, at 86, is still quite the charmer, probably because he does what he pleases. And what pleases the Texan is the stuff of Texas tee — fast, foxy race car designs. In Car World, Carroll Shelby is like Jay-Z — the indisputable Top Dog. He was a 1950s race car driver, who transformed to brilliant and ballsy executive to build the most beautiful fast Ford’s ever created — the Shelby Cobra, manufactured from 1965 to 1970. He famously launched the Ford Mustang GT350 with Lee Iacocca in 1964 and he oversaw Ford’s two Le Mans wins. But he’s still at it — he was named auto exec of the year in 2008, and he has the best domestic product on the road to back it up.
The Ford 2010 Shelby GT500, $46,325, is all that and big bag of tricks with a 540 horsepower 5.4-liter V8 and a strong-armed 510 lb-ft of torque. The car I lovingly tested had a thirsty $1,000 tax, HID headlamps, an electronics package and with destination totaled $50,895. SVT (Ford’s speedy Special Vehicle Team) fingerprints are all over this frisky horse. When this generation of the GT500 came out in 2007, it was criticized for being a bit of bucking bronco — fast but all over the road. Apparently, Shelby decided to refine the act through finishing school and the results are something short of remarkable.
Instantly, I could feel the difference in my butt on the jacked-up Midtown thoroughfares — larger, sturdier brake discs made of copper and fiberglass (from 215 to 250 mm) and a stellar gear-boxed that shifted through manual gears with assertive confidence wooed me instantly. Apparently, Shelby and SVT used new ratios to make for revs that keep on giving back with responsive accelearation.
The result is a race car that’s ready for the streets– the legal ones, that is, with 40 additional hp thanks to cold air intake tuning. It’s a solid 3,900 pounds with power to boot and is ready and able for everyday driving with ease. Ford’s AdvanceTrac keeps it in the pocket when it gets all worked up (many companies have a variation of this name for essentially the same technology, anticipating understeer and oversteer that lead to crash landings.)
While the outside is what most will focus on with such a flossy, Americana favorite, the inside has a pleasing Star Trek feel — aluminum and leather, offset by suggestive red SVT badging and the pearly-white shifter. The other essential — I even got the baby seat to fit in the back, though it did take some strategy to get the kid in and out. We made the sacrifice. Shouldn’t all toddlers test drive with their mommies in a 2010 GT500 Shelby?
For more Mustang on Gotryke:
- Muscle car maestro: Carroll Shelby (money.cnn.com)
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