This is the perfect car for anyone who thinks automotive styling peaked in 1968. With 500 supercharged horsepower aboard, the 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 convertible is also perfect for anyone who wants to obliterate rear tires instantly.
This is the cheapest 500-hp convertible on the market, but it's not just a ragtop. The Shelby GT500 is actually ragged. This is a car that doesn't hide its compromises. And it doesn't perform exactly like a Shelby GT500 coupe with the roof hacked off.
Looks Mean, Is Mean
Ford calls the GT500's front-end design "sinister." But the nose is way too blatant and aggressive for that. It just looks mean.
Mean isn't a bad thing. In fact, the original 1967 Shelby GT500 looked mean enough to scare Nurse Ratched.
As with the original, the new GT500 has a mouth big enough to ingest other cars whole. The hood bulges like a UFC fighter's bicep and the thick rear spoiler looks tough enough to scrape aircraft out of the sky.
Throw in 18-inch wheels with 255/45ZR18 front and chunky 285/40ZR18 rear Goodyear Eagle F1 tires, a bunch of snake badges and those stripes down along the rocker panels and the whole assembly looks like it could have been designed in, well, 1967.
Turn the key and it backs those looks up with great sounds and sensations. The 5.4-liter DOHC 32-valve engine growls with just enough supercharger whine to let everyone know naturally aspirated engines are for wimps.
The exhaust isn't loud (there are noise regulations, after all), but has a deep resonance with a touch of menace. And when you rev the engine, the whole car seems to torque over on its suspension. There aren't many cars so mean just standing still.
The problems start when the car moves.
500-Horsepower Engine
Built around an iron block and Roots-type lobed-rotor supercharger making 8.5 pounds of boost, the GT500's engine isn't a clone of the late great Ford GT's. The two-seater's engine, for instance, uses an aluminum block, a Lysholm-style screw-type compressor whomping out 12.5 pounds of boost and runs a dry-sump oiling system.
Yes, the GT500's engine swipes its aluminum cylinder heads, piston rings and bearings from the GT and they share 90.2mm cylinder bores and a 105.8mm crank stroke, but the differences are significant enough that the engines drive differently.
First of all, the 2005 Ford GT's engine made more power. It was rated at 550 hp at 6,500 rpm and 500 pound-feet of peak torque at 3,750 rpm, while the GT500's power plant comes in at 500 hp at 6,000 rpm and 480 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm (with a scant 6,250-rpm redline). The GT's engine also revs more eagerly and pulls harder over a greater operating range.
It boils down to the GT's engine feeling like it belongs in a 21st-century supercar, while the GT500's engine ? by far the most powerful engine Ford has ever stuffed into any production Mustang ? has the grunt of a classic muscle car. And the shorthand of calling the GT500 "a Mustang with the GT engine" just isn't accurate.
Getting It to the Road
And 500 is a lot of horsepower. So Ford backs the GT500's engine with the Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission feeding back to a 3.31:1 gearset in the solid rear axle.
With the Tremec in 1st, slamming open the GT500's throttle will overwhelm the rear tires even if the standard traction control is turned on. Too much faith in the traction control can be dangerous. Keep the accelerator pedal planted and heave the reluctant transmission into 2nd, and the rear tires will spin again before the car's electric mind catches up. In 3rd it feels as if the GT500's tail has been head-butted by a 747 at takeoff speed.
It's no surprise that the heavier GT500 convertible's 4.7-second blast to 60 mph and 13.1-second run through the quarter-mile at 109 mph (traction control off) are behind that of the GT500 coupe (which hit 60 in 4.6 seconds and ran the quarter in 12.6 seconds at 112 mph), but it's still seriously quick.
But even in a straight line, the limitations of the car's chassis are apparent.
300-Horsepower Chassis
Under hard acceleration, the GT500 convertible feels like there's a hinge in it running from the right front to the left rear tire ? it tends to squirrel around as the rear Goodyears hunt for traction. The car never feels fully planted like, say, a Corvette or any BMW. And it's a sensation that isn't apparent in the less powerful, less aggressively shod 300-hp Mustang GT convertible.
On a road course, the GT500 convertible is a mess. No two tires seem to be able to agree on what direction the car is headed.
That big iron lump under the hood means that 56.2 percent of the car's weight is teetering on the front wheels. Dive into a corner, hit the effective Brembo 14-inch front disc brakes (it stops from 60 mph in just 120 feet) and the GT500 wants to dig a burrow in the pavement deep enough to plant potatoes.
Counter that understeer with throttle and the Shelby's tail swings out wickedly. One of the test-drivers termed this behavior "pushy loose," and that's as close as anyone has come to describing it.
It's Not All Bad
And yet the GT500 slammed through the slalom at 69.2 mph and stuck on the skid pad at 0.89g. This is one of those cars that's better at tests than it is in the real world.
The GT500 coupe is hardly a great-handling track machine, but it has a tossability and catchability that's missing from the flexing convertible. Both coupe and convertible are softly sprung ? too softly sprung, really ? in what seems to be an attempt to ensure on-road comfort in a car with a rudimentary MacPherson strut front and coil sprung solid axle rear suspension system.
In the convertible, however, that softness is exacerbated by the springiness of the chassis itself. And the result is a rear tuned for a porpoise, and a front end set up for a whale. Ford should restrict itself to one marine mammal per car.
And the war between this Mustang's engine and chassis continues on the street. This may be the only production car around that's actually more composed doing donuts in a high school parking lot than it is commuting on the freeway. It's a relatively heavy and numb-feeling chassis that doesn't deliver the delights to be found in less powerful Mustangs.
Bunker Mentality
Top up, there's a bunkerlike feeling inside the GT500 convertible; the glass rear window is small and the black top darkens the entire interior. But get past that slightly claustrophobic feel and the well-bolstered front seats, easily read instrumentation and logical controls are all well appreciated.
Top down, the GT500's cockpit is as hospitable as those of other convertible Mustangs, with well-controlled wind intrusion and a rear seat better used as a parcel shelf than as a place for humans to sit.
But in the sunlight, the cheapness of many materials used throughout the interior is apparent. That's no big problem in a V6 Mustang convertible rented during a trip to Disney World, but a huge issue if you've financed a $50,000 GT500 for five years.
40 Years Later: Same Name, Same Story
Forget the insane prices they've been attracting at Barrett-Jackson; the original Shelby GT500s from '67 and '68 are among the most overrated muscle cars of all time. They were Mustangs with oversize (not particularly powerful) cop car engines and half-baked suspension tuning covered in aggressive decoration.
Heck, by '68 Carroll Shelby himself was only peripherally involved, as actual production had been turned over to Ford. They are not the delightful cars the original '65 and '66 GT350s are.
The new Ford-built, Ford-designed GT500 convertible is the same way. It's hugely powerful, but it's a porker that lacks, ironically, the suspension subtlety of the more satisfying, though less powerful, Shelby GT. Even the regular, far less expensive Mustang GT convertible is more rewarding to drive than the GT500.
Looking like it's 1968 is one thing. Driving like it's 1968 is something else altogether. Finally, here's a 500-hp car that's hard to like.
If it is anything like the GT500, they sure as hell won't get it at MSRP...
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