775-HP F-150 Super Snake Drags Pro-Lite Truck; Winner Runs Smoking Circles Around Loser

Ford’s F-Series of utilitarians celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2023, and most probably, the year will go down as the vehicle’s 47th consecutive year at the top of the pickup trucks’ American sales charts. What better way to make it a memorable year than by fighting a few quarter-mile battles against one of the most cutthroat trucks in the world?

A regular F-150 pickup truck scores big on the automotive market with a handful of pros, but high top speed isn’t one of them – there’s a long list of reasons for that. However, the 1964 Ford Mustang also wasn’t a ‘muscle’ car until Carroll Shelby had its way with it. And that tradition stuck to Ford long after the deal between FoMoCo and the famous tuner ended in the summer of ‘69.

In 2021, this F-150 got the Shelby venom and spawned as a 775-hp supercharged mutant that adores fresh supercars (as breakfast). With a manufacturer-claimed 0-60 mph (97 kph) score of around 3.45 seconds, the muscle truck is anything but a toolkit carrier with beefy looks. Shelby also states a mouth-watering performance in the 0-100 mph (161 kph) trials: 8.3 seconds.

The monster relies on a 5.0-liter Coyote V8 and forced induction to fire its salvo of 775 hp (786 PS) and 868 Nm (640 lb-ft). Since all four wheels pull hard – courtesy of the ten-speed automatic box – the 2.2-ton truck is a severe dragstrip contender with the ego of a monster.

This is precisely what it's up against - a Pro-Lite Monster truck more accustomed to high-speed dirt-track jumps and crashes than straight-line dashes. This all-out outrage of a machine is way underpowered for this race – with a 4.9-liter small-block Ford engine spitting out 444 hp (450 PS) through a three-speed semi-automatic transmission.

The race truck gets all the go from its back wheels only, and this would typically be a massive handicap at the start line, lest we consider the decisive factor: its weight. 3,085 lbs – around 1.4 tons – is enough to counter the lack of a large-bore firepower arsenal.

Unsurprisingly, the F-150 Super Snake shoots off the line like a March hare, thanks to all-wheel drive and an NFL-level kick in the tailgate from the stud of raged stallions stampeding toward the finish line. To no avail, as the dirt racer shakes off its hesitant start – low eight on the rear wheels doesn’t help put power down efficiently – and simply walks past the Shelby like the Ford is standing still.

Round two is a shameful display of how to launch a car the wrong way in a drag race, with the driver flooring the Ford and redlining it to Dearborn and back. With the gearbox stuck in manual mode, the muscle-bound truck agonizes down the concrete strip at a funeral-attending first-gear speed. The monster truck might as well use a sun clock (or a calendar?) to measure the gap at the finish line.

To make it a fair fight – in the Ford’s pilot’s and co-pilot’s opinion – the dirt track race truck is relegated to its natural environment – the unpaved ground. More to the point, it has to run on grass – and this mischievous trick pays off: the Shelby gets ahead and stays there for the entire length of the standing quarter-mile sprint.

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With too much power on its oversized tires, the Pro-Lite truck’s rear wheels spin hopelessly in the slippery hay field, giving the Ford the edge. But once it gets up to speed and hangs on, it’s game over for the arrogant Shelby. The rolling start race is much tighter, with the off-road-loving contender putting up one hell of a fight. Not enough to win since the Shelby catches up just before the finish line and goes across it first.

In the all-concrete race, the Ford F-150 Shelby Super Snake needed 13.8 seconds to cover the 1,320 feet of dragstrip, while the winner did it in 12.6. When mowing the weeds along the English runway, the same Pro-Lite truck takes 21.7 seconds to get to the checkered flag end of the drag race.