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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.

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’être. 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

The variable-geometry turbocharger (VGT) has many names: Variable-area nozzle turbo (VATN), variable-nozzle turbine (VNT) or variable turbine geometry (VTG), to name a few. The name it’s given depends primarily on the company offering the technology—Holset, Aerodyne, Garrett or Porsche, respectively—but its principle of operation is the same.

Rather than employ a wastegate to vent excess exhaust pressure in order to regulate turbo output, and thus boost level, the VGT uses a ring of movable vanes which encircle the exhaust turbine. A computer- or analog-controlled servo alters the angle of the vanes in response to engine, turbo and driver demands, regulating boost level and turbo response far more quickly and seamlessly than an ordinary wastegate. Boost threshold, turbo lag and many other standard turbo disadvantages are greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, and the device enables the turbo to fulfill the promise of making a smaller, more efficient engine truly feel and act like a larger, more powerful one when called upon, without the low-end lethargy or surges that accompany conventionally-regulated turbo engines.

The VGT’s downsides include, as you might imagine, added complexity, and until recently a lack of durability from the delicate vanes at higher boost levels, when the temperature and pressure of the exhaust gas pouring into the turbine is quite intense indeed. Still, in spite of its complexity over a standard trap door wastegate, there’s still no more straightforward and adoptable alternative method of controlling boost; the VGT doesn’t require engine developers to redesign the entire powerplant to accommodate it—just a few piping changes, sensors and lines of code in the computer.

Among the first production cars to use a VGT was the limited-edition ’89 Shelby CSX-VNT, a breathed-upon Dodge Shadow whose standard 2.2l turbocharged Chrysler K-engine was mildly reworked and fitted with a Garrett VGT. 0-60 time was average for the day, in the mid 6-second range, but the engine’s full 205 ft-lbs of torque were on tap from an impossibly low 2100 rpm all the way through redline, thanks to the turbo’s unique method of regulating boost. Concerns over reliability meant only 500 CSX-VNTs rolled off the production line, and enthusiasts would have to wait another 18 years before another VGT-equipped, gasoline-engine car would appear in the States: The ’07 Porsche 997 Turbo, whose 3.6l, 473-hp flat-six was fitted with a pair of Borg-Warner VGTs. The advantages of the VGT—lack of a wastegate simplifying plumbing in the rear-engined car, and the chassis-settling boon of ultra-linear engine response—made the design a natural and long overdue fit for the 911. Of course, while we wait for more automakers to adopt the technology, aftermarket companies such as Aerocharger and Holset have been faithful to offer kits and turbo upgrades to tuner shops and ambitious DIYers.

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series spotlighting obscure automotive engineering solutions. Read the other installments here:

• Opel’s Cam-In-Head Engine
• Nivomat Dampers
• The Desmodromic Valve
• Front-Engined AWD Systems
• Mercedes’ Monoblade Wiper
• Twincharging
• The Turbine Car
• The Sleeve Valve
• The Hydraulic Cooling Fan
• The Laycock de Normanville Overdrive
• Audi’s UFO Brakes