If you’re in the market for a very fast Mustang, the Shelby GT500 is the one for you at $72,900 excluding destination charge. To extract the most performance available, you also have to spend $18,500 for the Carbon Fiber Track Package that includes lightweight wheels and sticky tires.
It’s a lot of hard-earned greenbacks, indeed, but it’s a lot of car as well. The most powerful Mustang and most powerful Ford ever produced hits 60 miles per hour (96 kilometers per hour) in 3.3 seconds, and the quarter-mile run takes 10.7 seconds despite the very perceptible wheel spin off the line.
Owners who intend to go faster need a set of drag radials at the very least, but the aftermarket can improve the Shelby GT500 well beyond that. Palm Beach Dyno specializes in making the Shelby GT500 as fast as possible on the blacktop, as you’ll see in the following video starring Ken Bjonnes.
In addition to carbon-fiber bucket seats that look spectacular, the PBD owner's car rocks 1,141 horsepower and 840 pound-feet (1,139 Nm) of torque. Those numbers are developed at the wheels to boot, which is crazy for a road car that you can drive home after slaying the strip.
Ken’s latest quarter-mile pass ended in 9.035 seconds at 156.77 miles per hour (252.296 kilometers per hour), and the secret for all this performance can be attributed to a very long selection of high-quality parts.
Manufacturers that made the Palm Beach Dyno-tuned Shelby GT500 possible include Forgeline for the wheels, Kooks for the long-tube headers, a ported Whipple supercharger with a 2.27-inch pulley, a Jokerz Performance billet lid, and many more. The list continues with the likes of Anderson Composites, Lethal Performance, Snyder Performance Engineering, Ford Performance, Late Model Throttle, Injector Dynamics, CorteX Racing, as well as KellTrac.
Of course, the dual-clutch transmission has been upgraded as well because it would otherwise slip or grenade itself, given the engine’s torque. New Zealand-based Dodson Motorsport is responsible for the clutch upgrade, which is available through Palm Beach Dyno for a whopping $6,499.
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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