The Blue Oval turned the legendary Mustang from an undeniable American icon into the world’s top-selling sports car when it finally decided to unleash it globally. Still, there are some interesting versions that remain forbidden fruits for the Old Continent, and most have Shelby written all over them. Thankfully, unofficial imports will always come to the rescue when there’s enough cash at stake.
Such is the case with the Ford Shelby Mustang GT350 and GT500 – with the latter being available in Europe courtesy of various companies that are more than willing to hike up the price if there’s enough demand.
We’ve recently seen the Shelby GT350 rumbling its exhaust heart out and about on the Autobahn, and now it’s time to defer to the absolute King of all ‘Stangs out there (as well as the 760-hp leader of the entire Ford lineup) for an interesting test of its skills.
This time around, we’re treated to a hot lap of the Hockenheim racetrack courtesy of the sport auto YouTube channel. As is customary in such instances, the Germans aren’t treating anyone gently (heck, the driver doesn’t even wear racing gloves), jumping directly in the middle of the action.
We’re used to these hot laps already, so we’re not missing on any audio commentary – especially since it would have been in sport auto’s native tongue. Heck, on this occasion they didn’t even give us the classic side-track beauty shots...
Of course, no one can ever have it all, so we’ll just have to find solace in seeing how the 760-hp Shelby Mustang GT500 fared against other cars the Germans have previously tested on the same course. As far as we're concerned, the video is not that impressive, but that was plainly obvious from the get-go, considering the shaky-helmet POV.
Anyways, the GT500 hot lap ended with a time of 1:54.6, which is light-years away from the absolute best (McLaren Senna with 1:40.8) and in the same ballpark as the BMW M5 Competition (1:54.2), the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 PDK (1:54.6), or the Audi R8 V10 Spyder Performance (1:55.2).
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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