Driven: Shelby GT500

Six hundred and sixty three horsepower. Eight hundred and sixty torques. Say hello to the Shelby GT500, Ford's own blue collar hero with the entire American working-class' fury boiled down into 5.4 liters of supercharged V8. A big, rude, no-table-manners-type of thing with a primordial urge to travel sideways. Now, I didn't fill up during the test drive, but judging by the feel of it I suspect the GT500 runs on bricks and testosterone. Cars don't get manlier than this.

For the 2013 model they've managed to break the supercar-barrier of, whisper it, 200mph, which is just barking, considering the car costs about the same as your average BMW. Today, though, I won't get to feel the compensation for my lesser parts by driving a 200mph car, because the one tested today is "merely" an '07 model with power upped to 2013 spec. Having driven the car, though, I don't care if it's 200mph or not. Considering it weighs enough to have its own orbit, it feels perversely quick.

Now, there are of course good fast cars and bad fast cars, and by any measurable aspect this certainly would get listed as a bad fast car. However, that's only one part of the truth. It might get served in the corners by an M5 and it might lack the refinement of an M5, but people who say the GT500 is lesser than an M5 can just sod off, because it is from an entirely different planet of fun. It appeals to something unmeasurable, namely emotions, and it does a convincing job at it, too.

I have yet to come across a car that encourages fooling around as much as the GT500. It's like the malicious friend your mother always warned you about for being a bad influence. It's way too easy to get into trouble behind the wheel of the GT500. The throttle response and power-delivery is brutal enough to move the 1832kg lump of steel from 0-62 in 3,8 seconds, which means you really have to pamper the throttle to keep it from destroying the back wheels. Obviously, with 860Nm of torque there are enormous amounts of grunt, and going sideways is more of a rule than an exception. Not that I mind though, because boy, oh boy is it fun!

The GT500 I'm driving today has an aftermarket suspension-kit fitted, so that takes care of the biggest downside of the vanilla-Shelby, namely the chassis. Cornering is actually not rubbish with the up-rated suspension, but it feels like it tries too hard. You can't help feeling this is a car dominated by it's engine. That sound when you floor it, the whine of the accelerating supercharger outlining the sound of a roaring V8, is what it's all about. I'd actually pay for tickets if they ran that engine at a concert hall, that's how intoxicating it is. The flamboyance and the sheer unsensibility of the thing is something you get very addicted to.

I can't quite decide if I'm scared to death by this monster or excited as hell. Ford really needs to sort their shit out, because 663 horses through a live-axle is just bloody wrong. Perversely however, that's the allure of it; a primitive combination of fear, juvenile bluster and smoking rubber. We car enthusiasts are just overgrown children after all, aren't we? And the GT500 is catering just for that kind.

If you are rational, look elsewhere. I guarantee you there are better, faster and more refined cars, but if you are aged 12 and want to explore the ultimate dimensions of fun the GT500 is unbeatable. As Clarkson so accurately explained in his film "Thriller" it's not about the lateral G's or 0-62 times, it's about the grin on your face when you exit a corner sideways in a cloud of smoke. I'm going to start saving up for one.

-HS