2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 sprints from 0 to 100 and back again in 10.6 seconds
Its front brakes are larger than the wheels on some cars.
Going fast is all well and good, but eventually you're going to need to come to a stop. A car that hustles without a good set of brakes is only half a car, really, which is why Ford's latest news about the Shelby GT500 can put to rest any fears that the automaker only considered half of the equation.
Ford announced on Monday that the 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500 can sprint from 0 to 100 miles per hour and then brake back down to 0 in just 10.6 seconds. That's a whole lot of hustle, although I can't imagine Ford would enjoy you testing this out on public roads after the car reaches dealerships.
In order to get up to that speed in the first place, the powertrain has to put in work. There's plenty of powertrain for that, starting with the engine, a 5.2-liter supercharged V8 putting out 760 horsepower and 625 pound-feet of torque. A seven-speed dual-clutch transmission rattles off upshifts in as little as 80 milliseconds (0.08 seconds). The paddle shifters on the wheel are hooked directly to the DCT to reduce wiring-related delays between pulling the paddle and initiating the shift.
And that's only the first half of the sprint. When it comes time to stop, it's all about the GT500's brakes. And this thing has brakes aplenty, with its front rotors measuring 16.5 inches in diameter, larger than some vehicle wheels. Speaking of wheels, Ford has lightweight carbon-fiber rollers on offer on the GT500. Combined with massively sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, that reduction in unsprung mass makes for some prompt slowdowns.
The car doesn't always have to be that violent. It packs five different drive modes that affect everything from the antilock braking system to shift feel. Sport mode improves shift times by about 20 percent, while switching to Drag mode mimics powershifting to try and maintain power delivery between gears. After all, just because the GT500 can get down a quarter-mile drag strip in 10.8 seconds doesn't mean that drivers want a car engineered only for that purpose.
