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The New King of the Hill:
950-hp Shelby GT1000

March 25, 2013 by Matt

Ford Mustang Shelby GT1000 1000 Dark Blue

This is getting a little ridiculous.

Top Gear has info today on the newest Mustang breathed upon by the tuning gods at Shelby, the 950-hp GT1000.

While I’m not quite sure about the chronology here:

[It] arrives on a wave of history: exactly 50 years ago Carroll Shelby premiered the Cobra at the ’62 New York motor show, announcing the arrival of a new tuning house.

seeing as how it’s 2013, there’s no doubt Shelby’s creation is designed to steal some of the new C7 Corvette’s thunder at the upcoming 2013 New York Auto Show and to stoke enthusiasm for the outgoing Mustang generation, even as a new one is being readied by Ford.

Ford Mustang Shelby GT1000 1000 Engine Motor Supercharger Blower

What we have here, essentially, is an officially-sanctioned version of a particular flavor of tuner car familiar to almost all enthusiasts: The dyno queen. Bragging rights are the GT1000’s sole raison d’ĂȘtre. Whoever shells out the asking price of $200K (for a Mustang!) for one of the 50 that will be produced can claim ownership of unarguably the most monstrous pony car ever screwed together by an official tuning house. Nevermind the fact that there’s absolutely no way that kind of power is usable in a street or track setting; wheel that baby up onto the dyno rollers, fire up the digicam and get ready to upload the video of the pull to YouTube and achieve instant Internet fame. That’s it, really, aside from sedate cruises to local meets and being lovingly waxed every couple of weeks. I understand Shelby’s reasoning behind the GT1000’s build, but as a prospective automotive experience, to me, it’s less than desirable. No thanks.

Image credits: mustangsdaily.com, motortrend.com

Filed under: Ford, Muscle Cars, News, Shelby

4 Comments

  1. Agreed. When it comes to modern Mustangs, although the GT and even the lowly V6 ‘stang are objectively nice cars, unless it has the words “Boss 302” in the name, I’m probably not interested.

    • Matt says:

      Same. The only modern Mustang I’d consider would be the Boss 302. Just seems more authentic (?) than the other flavors available.

  2. Ryan says:

    While I am admittedly a HP Junkie and would gladly drive a GT1000 if it were given to me, you’d have to be a fool to pay that kind of money for one. Nearly the same power can be had by modifying your own GT500 with a larger twin screw blower and spending a FRACTION of said cost. You could even throw in a fully built motor capable of holding 1500 HP and still spend half as much! That car is more of a show piece for “Look what we can do!” than anything else. That and for “collectors” to purchase and let sit/rot in a sealed temperature control storage room.

    And that 950 HP is flywheel, so probably 800 rwhp… that’s still useable. ;) I speak from personal experience though, 600 – 700 rwhp is actually plenty streetable with the right tire/suspension setup. Admittedly I think much over that and anything under 60 mph throttle punches are going to be a handful. Put it in an AWD platform though and you’ll have the perfect street monster! :) To each their own I suppose.

    • Matt says:

      Totally agree. It’s silly and obviously made for the Internet crowd to get in flame wars over, and for the collector community.

      A highway pull could be fun…or if you mounted some Mickey Thompsons at the strip… Otherwise, no good will come of that much power through 2 wheels only.

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