Performance Inspiration: Carroll Shelby and Ford Special Vehicle Team be part of forces to create a present day successor to the well-known Shelby GT500 of the overdue 1960sPerformance Hardware: 475-horsepower supercharged V-eight, 6-pace guide transmission, race-tuned suspension, four-piston Brembo brakesPerformance Design: Mustang history with competitive muscular the front-stop layout, Le Mans racing stripes, unmistakable "Cobra" brand and Shelby nameplate
DETROIT, Jan. eight, 2006 - What occurs whilst a legend from Texas reunites with a legend from Dearborn? The maximum effective Mustang ever.
After forty years, racing legend Carroll Shelby and the Ford Mustang are returned collectively with the creation of the 2007 Ford Shelby GT500.
True to the authentic GT500, it is going to be to be had each as a coupe and as a convertible whilst it is going on sale withinside the summer time season of 2006.
"When Carroll turned into growing the authentic GT350 and GT500, he desired to construct the maximum effective, maximum succesful Mustangs of his day," says Hau Thai-Tang, director, Advanced Product Creation and Special Vehicle Team. "Our intention turned into to construct the maximum effective, maximum succesful Mustang ever."
Serving as touchstone and inspirational chief for each the idea and the manufacturing versions, Shelby turned into inspired with the aid of using what the crew has accomplished.The rear spoiler of the Ford Shelby GT500 echoes that of the traditional GT500, even as the rear air diffuser is stimulated with the aid of using the present day Ford GT."It's one issue to place 450 horsepower in an unique supercar," says Shelby. "It's any other to place that lots strength in some thing as inexpensive as a Mustang. The truth that they now no longer simplest met their intention however driven directly to 475 horsepower is a super achievement."
Shelby is aware of some thing approximately growing present day supercars. He served as a senior adviser at the crew that advanced and constructed the 550-horsepower Ford GT.
Power Play
As predicted of some thing with Shelby's call on it, the coronary heart of the auto is what is below the hood. The Ford Shelby GT500's supercharged five.4-liter, 32-valve V-eight evolves from Ford's enjoy with tuning its modular, or MOD, engines. Output is a brawny 475 horsepower.
The engine is force-fed an air-and-gasoline aggregate thru a "Roots-type" supercharger presenting eight.five kilos in line with rectangular inch of boost. The GT500 makes use of a solid iron engine block. It borrows from the Ford GT application aluminum, four-valve cylinder heads, piston jewelry and bearings, including a excessive degree of overall performance sturdiness to the drivetrain. "Powered with the aid of using SVT" camshaft covers upload the crowning glory to the engine.
Helping positioned the strength to the pavement is a 6-pace guide gearbox. For the overall performance driver, its lightly spaced gears imply less "stirring" is wanted to discover the "candy spot." This offers a worthwhile enjoy at some stage in the engine's wide torque curve. The heavy-responsibility transmission has validated itself a inclined accomplice to Mustangs in each avenue and music environments, consisting of latest avenue-going Mustang Cobras and the brand new race-prevailing Mustang FR500C.
Power Requires Control
The Ford Shelby GT500 keeps a legacy of all-round overall performance that made the authentic a world-elegance racer on tracks and avenue publications across the world.
The Ford Shelby GT500 begins offevolved with the stable Mustang underpinnings. The all-new Mustang turned into designed from the start with overall performance derivatives in mind, presenting an extremely rigid, well-engineered place to begin for GT500 chassis engineers.
SVT engineers retuned and upgraded key chassis components. Improvements inclusive of revised shocks, spring costs and upgraded stabilizer bars assist the Ford Shelby GT500 forestall and flip with the identical authority because it is going.
The Ford Shelby GT500 capabilities a MacPherson strut impartial the front suspension with Reverse L decrease manipulate arms, and a stable-axle, three-hyperlink rear suspension with coil springs and a Panhard rod for particular manipulate of the rear axle.
This rear suspension layout has been established at the music with the aid of using Ford Racing. The Ford Racing Mustang FR500C turned into purpose-constructed from the bottom 2005 Mustang frame shape and suspension geometry to run withinside the Grand-Am Cup series, a category of avenue racing for manufacturing-primarily based totally cars.
Competing towards the great from Germany and Japan, a Mustang FR500C received its first race withinside the season opener at Daytona International Speedway in February 2005. It went directly to dominate the season and clinch the championship.
"SVT and Ford Racing may be operating nearer than ever as we cross ahead on destiny projects, particularly Mustangs," says Thai-Tang, a Ford Racing alumnus who served because the race engineer for the Newman-Haas Racing crew in 1993.
To healthy this strength and managing ability, engineers geared up a number of the most important brakes withinside the enterprise to the Ford Shelby GT500. Four-piston Brembo calipers are suited to 14-inch Brembo vented rotors up the front, and 11.eight-inch vented discs withinside the rear maintain SVT's legacy of great-braking Mustangs. Secure footing is supplied with the aid of using 255/45ZR excessive-overall performance tires in the front and 285/40ZR excessive-overall performance tires in returned. Wheels are 18 inches with the aid of using 9.five inches.
