2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 brings 760 hp to the track

[SOUND] [MUSIC] For more than 15 years now, if you wanted the biggest, baddest Mustang on the block, you got yourself a Shelby GT500 and today, we're getting our first drive. In the biggest, baddest Gt 500 yard, with 760 horsepower from a supercharged 5.2 liter V8. Just for context, that's as much power as a Mustang GT and the Mustang EcoBoost combined. But there's been a bit of an unwritten rule about Shelby GTs. If you wanted to go the racetrack, you got the GT 350 which is lighter. But if you wanted to go the drag strip, you get the GT 500. For the 2020 model year Ford is resetting expectations by producing not only what they say is their most powerful production car ever, but also the best handling Gt 500. Can they deliver on both points? Let's find out. [MUSIC]. [MUSIC] Now we've come into the race track. We're changing cars and we're gonna start by finding out if the GT500 can still do what we know it should do very well. Which is go incredibly quickly in a straight line. We've got a quarter mile of empty asphalt ahead of me. I've got water I've got a burnout area and I am just about ready to go But first, I gotta dig through some menus here first of all I got to go through and set my launch RPM you can choose any RPM you want in 100 RPM increments. I'm going to try 1800 here to start if I get too much we'll spend I can lower that down if I bought a little bit I I can bring that back up again. And after that, we gotta creep forward and then I go into line lock mode, and then we do a little bit of burnout. All right, let's run through the water here to start. [BLANK_AUDIO] All right, so, foot on the brake, holding okay to initialize line lock. Got to wait a moment here. Now really push on the brake, press OK. It actually pushes your foot off the brake. Now a little bit of burnout. [BLANK_AUDIO] Hit OK to get out of line lock. Here we go, okay, now we gotta go up to the lights. This is the exciting part and the precise part. The floor and green. [SOUND] Here we go. A little bit of wheel spin. 0-60 in 3.3 seconds and a quarter-mile, theoretically in just 10.7. I don't think I did quite that quickly. I'm gonna guess maybe in the mid-11s. But 10.7 for a stock car is pretty remarkable. Yeah, that's about a full second slower than the Dodge demon can do. But keep in mind, the Dodge demon comes on drag radials, the 10.7 that was set in this car is actually on the street tires and Michelin tires which are actually really good on a road course to that is a really impressive time for a street legal car. Even one was 760 horsepower. Now you might have noticed that it wasn't doing any shifting here and that's not because this car has an automatic and actually has a seven speed DCT first in the Mustang and out here, that's a huge advantage shifting and just 80 milliseconds. But interestingly, if you put this car in track mode, it actually emulates power shifting. And if you don't know what power shifting is basically in a manual transmission, that means when you grab the next gear, you don't lift off the gas. The car basically does the same thing here. So as you go from one year to the next to the next and the next one gives you a little bit of extra gas and a little bit of extra kick in the pants as you're flying down a quarter mile. Yeah, okay, maybe having three pedals will be a little bit more fun, but trust me, I'm gonna be way quicker out here on the drag strip with DCT. Now it's time to get my slip and see how I did. How do we do Got 11.4. 11.4, all right that's not too bad. Yeah not too bad.. All right I'm gonna try again and see if I can do better. Okay. Thanks man. Yeah. 11.4. [BLANK_AUDIO] Mind you I'm not really a drag racer, I'm kinda a newbie at this But I do know though, is that I'm doing that again. [LAUGH] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] That's really impressive for a street car. Let's pull over here I'll pop the hood and see how the magic happens. Taking a look at the proverbial heart of this literal beast again we've got a 5.2 liter VA in here. The block is shared with the GT 350 but it seems some significant updates this year. The deal with the 12 psi of boosters coming from this Eaton supercharger, nestled down in the V. Have they got so low, well they actually flipped it over. The scroll was on the bottom now this point and on top, we're got air water intercooler to keep that intake air nice and cool. Also keeping things cool 50% more cooling air through the front than in the GT 350 and a massive duct in the hood to pull all that hot air back out. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] All right, we changed cars, we're going out on track in the GT 500 to see if this thing can really turn as well as Ford promises me that it absolutely will. Now, a couple disclaimers. First of all, my first time at this track, so all disclaimers apply when it comes to [UNKNOWN] Is miss breaking points and all that good stuff. Second of all, this robot you see here in this harness, these are not factory options you can take all the boxes you want to in that fun online configurator doesn't matter how many options packages you include. This will not show up in your car arrives in the dealership so don't complain to them. But importantly, this car does have a carbon fiber track package. That deletes the receipt which means there's plenty of room back there for that robot making the installation nice and easy. And what else do you get with a carbon fiber track package well as you can guess a lot of carbon fiber including some arrow bits of front in that big wing hanging off the rear bumper back there. It is adjustable and i hope they've got it in full downforce position because this track is pretty ordinary to say the least but the most notable thing by far. Would be the carbon fiber wheels at every corner shaving 15 pounds per corner in unsprung match. That is a huge savings. It makes a big big difference when you're out here on a track that's got a little bit of bumps like this one seems to have. And the final disclaimer I wanna make is that this is a six point harness. So if my voice goes up an octave in the braking zones I'm not gonna lie. As I'm going through the warm up lap on this car, normally in a new car and a new track I'd be keeping an eye on the oil pressure which is nice and easy to do. Thanks to big [UNKNOWN] right here on the dashboard. A lot of cars and a lot of tracks will suffer from oil starvation. Nations you're going around long corners, right like that one or left like the other one depending on where the oil pickup is in the oil pan. Before it actually in the 10,000 hours of on track testing that they had that they put this car through. They came up with a really interesting solution which is basically what they call an active baffle in the oil pan. It allows oil to flow in one way and the oil pan But it keeps it from flowing back out the wrong way that ensures that you get nice steady oil pressure, even without going to a dry subsystem and even in a long, long, long neck stretcher of a corner, like this one right here. Here we go coming on the front straight for the first time trying to put my foot to the floor. You ready? I am. Here we go. [SOUND] [LAUGH] 760 horsepower. Wow. All right. Turn all the brakes. Okay. See moves around a lot on the brakes but nice and steady and stable. We are in track mode of course. The car has a special tuning for the ABS system and track mode which makes things far more aggressive. Than before they normally get out of the streets is exactly what I want out here. [SOUND] This power is unbelievable. He just leaves right out of the corners. Makes you feel like a superhero like you could just take any old line you walk through the corner. It doesn't matter if you're preserving any momentum and not because [BLANK_AUDIO] You always got a whole lot more momentum right under your right foot just waiting for you. [LAUGH] Okay. [BLANK_AUDIO] Yeah, those carpet fiber wheels are not only lighter, they're actually a half an inch wider than in the standard car, which gives me more rubber on the road. You need more grip to make this thing brake and turn to a fast flowing corner like this. This thing feel incredibly planted. I don't I'm quite going quick enough to really feel the downforce but I certainly appreciate that it's there. Watch the curves really nicely too. Ok Brake, turn. [SOUND] And, my goodness does that sound good. So many turbocharged or rather cars that forced induction have to rely on. A lot of synthetic stuff to make anything happen here in the cockpit, but man this thing sounds ridiculously good. All right, patience patience patience in this corner. Long long long long long left hander. Pushed the front a little bit there. And there. All right back on the front straight. Foot to the floor. [SOUND] Okay, shift lights up in the dashboard. And the gauge cluster, cluster, completely repeat use itself as you go from one to the next. So right now I'm in track mode. So I've got a big. Horizontal tack on to the kind of thing you'd expecting like before GT for example looks very racy and very appropriate as I'm out here hustling around. All right now what about that DCT obviously on the drag strip that DCT is great because you've got shifts that are incredibly quick and exactly when you want them. [UNKNOWN] on a racetrack, you might think that you would want to, you know, something with three pedals to have a little bit more fun and for sure that would be more engaging. But trust me this is engaging enough with only two pedals and I'm just leaving it in automatic at this point out in the road. It didn't seem to be hunting between here sometimes which was a little bit annoying on the twist events when I wanted to pick the right gear and hold it through a corner. But out here on the race track when I'm constantly either on the brakes or on the gas, it's doing a really good job at picking the right gear for the right corner. I actually haven't felt the need to drop it into manual once. But if I want to just push this M button right here in the center console, and this thing shifts incredibly quickly Grab a gear and instantaneously it's there. That's pretty great and like nothing you've ever seen in a Mustang before. [MUSIC] Now you can definitely feel the weight of this car, the larger physics Absolutely still apply here, but this thing's way better out here than I thought it would be [LAUGH]. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] We're changing cars one more time so I can get behind the wheel of this absolutely beautiful 1967 Shelby GT500 on loan from Hagerty. It's amazing to see how far the GT500 has come In the last 50 years, and while I wouldn't hustle to guess to say what will be driving or riding in 50 years from now, I hope that whatever it is, makes me smile as much as these two cars have made me smile today. [MUSIC]