During this weekend's Indianapolis Motor Speedway broadcast, a very special Easter egg was dropped around the 39:20 mark: "Right now what’s in development is that GT350 race car for next year. We should see that car on the track later this September.”
The announcer is referring to the GT350R race car slated to compete in next year's championship, but we can't help but have a sneaking suspicion that the heavily anticipated 2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 will be previewed then as well.
The only IMSA event programmed in the month is the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge in Austin, that will take place on September 19th at the Circuit of the Americas. Pretty fitting event and venue if you ask us. It is a pretty similar scenario to what Chevrolet has done with the NASCAR version of the SS and the production version of the performance sedan.
We've seen a 2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 doing very hot laps on the Nurburgring Nordschleife a couple of times now, and the spy video is proof that this pony shapes up to be quite the rowdy machine. Aesthetically, the GT350 loses its fog lights but adds a deep chin spoiler and a lot of racy paraphernelia: wide side skirts, an aggressive aerodynamic diffuser with two exit pipes sticking through each of its sides, a boot lid spoiler and low profile performance rubber shoehorned on 19-inch an 20-inch alloys.
If you take out the visual drama, you're left with the firepower of this track-bred Stang. The aural enjoyment is coming from a V8 that sounds to be normally aspirated. It's not know what type of engine is, but we do expect to find a 5-liter Coyote V8 with various high-performance bits and bobs added.
The reworked eight-cylinder mill should get around 550 horsepower, which should go well with a more aggressive setup of the independent rear suspension. Voices in the industry hint that the upcoming 2016 Ford Mustang GT350 will be the building block of a Mach 1 variant expected to be launched next year.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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