Everything about the Ford Shelby GT500 screams muscle car. If there's something on the GT500 that can bulge, it bulges — fenders, hood and oversize grille. It wears stripes big enough to land commercial jets upon. The wheels are huge and encased in even bigger tires. And there are enough scoops along the body to keep a half-dozen Baskin-Robbins franchises busy for a summer. The GT500 is a lot of things: brazen, fast, audacious and capable. About the only thing the Ford Shelby GT500 isn't is modest.
Every Ford Shelby GT500 starts with a massive helping of heritage. Master racer Carroll Shelby started tweaking Mustangs at the request of Ford way back in 1965. In order to create the first Shelby Mustang, Shelby ripped the seats out of 1965 fastbacks, souped up the 289-cubic-inch V8 to 306 horsepower, replaced the steel hood with a fiberglass one, added Koni shocks and some other suspension tweaks, and slapped on a pair of blue stripes across the Wimbledon White paint. The result was, of course, one of the greatest and best-driving Mustangs ever. And there's still plenty of GT350 in today's Ford Shelby GT500.
That wasn't the end of the Ford Shelby GT500's evolution. The first car to wear the GT500 name came in the 1967 model year, when Carroll Shelby expanded his range to include Mustangs equipped with Ford's 428-cubic-inch Police Interceptor V8. Production of the GT500 and GT350 continued through 1969 and '70, when production stopped. It wasn't until the 2007 model year that the Ford Shelby GT500 was revived.
There had been other limited-run Mustangs in the 37 years between the muscle-car era and the 21st-century Ford Shelby GT500s, including numerous Mustang Cobras engineered by Ford's Special Vehicle Team (SVT). And it was SVT that engineered the new GT500 coupe and convertible, too, with an assist from Carroll Shelby himself. It's Shelby who would further tweak the Ford Shelby GT500 to create the GT500KR.
With that much heritage, and a lot more, going for it, the Ford Shelby GT500 is irresistible.
