CARLOS LAGO: Hey, remember this Ford Mustang Shelby GT500
we bought back in January?
Well, we had a lot of fun plans with it.
But 2020 had other ideas.
Hey, hey step back, keep your distance, OK?
We're good?
All right.
Well, now that our test track is back open,
we finally get to test it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're going to talk about what it's
been like to own this vehicle for the past few months
and see what its supercharged V8 goodness has felt like
and what it's also meant in terms of fuel economy.
Then we're going to test it and we're
going to find out how those performance figures
that we generate here compare to that of the Carbon Fiber Track
Pack GT500 we tested late last year.
We'll see if the $18,500 that option
costs, what that's actually worth in performance data.
Anyway, hit the links below to visit
Edmunds.com see more about our experience with this vehicle.
And also be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.
And we'll get on with the rest of the video.
Hey, kids.
One of the awesome things about living in California
is not only do you have 91-octane fuel as your best
fuel choice, you also have to have a front license plate,
especially if you're in Santa Monica.
They really seem to enjoy ticketing vehicles
without front plates.
Now if you look at the GT500, there
aren't a lot of obvious places to put one.
You have these two dimples in the bumper
that you could use to drill in and put a bracket there.
But you really don't want to drill into the front bumper
of your GT500.
We actually went to an aftermarket company
called Grimmspeed.
And they sold us this bracket which is actually intended
to be used on a Ford Focus RS.
It works really well in this case and threads
into the tow hook threaded receiver.
And that means it's easy to install and easy to remove when
you want to go to a track day.
So now our GT500 is just barely on the right side of legal.
Good stuff.
Now we get to talk about fuel economy.
And when we do that, we're going to pop the hood.
It's like, I think, what was the big short where
they had to use celebrities to talk about the financial crisis
to keep people interested?
Anyway, let's show of this.
These things get really hot.
And they are sticky, which is really fun.
Black hood pins-- who would have thought.
It's great idea in the California sun.
Anyway, fuel economy.
Look at this engine.
All right, we have just over 5,000 miles on this GT500.
And so far, our average fuel economy has been 12.4 MPG.
That sounds low.
It actually matches the EPA's city rating.
We have recorded as high as 22 MPG on a road trip.
But most of our fills tend to be in the low teens.
We actually have a number of films that are under 10 MPG.
Now of course, it's 760 horsepower.
You shouldn't expect good fuel economy.
But you should also know how quickly
this engine consumes fuel.
Back when we tested the Carbon Fiber Track Pack GT500,
we went through an entire tank in a matter of hours.
We've actually ran into situations
with this car where the low fuel light came on
and the fuel gauge showed half a tank.
Like, this thing really likes to go through fuel in a way
that we haven't experienced from the Camaro ZL1 and both Dodge
Challenger and Dodge Charger Hellcat variants.
If gasoline was gin, this car would be Winston Churchill.
[ENGINE REVVING]
If gas were a social media currency,
this car is Gen Z. Zing.
This thing just is really bad with fuel economy.
That being said, outside of the fuel economy,
this thing has been a terrific daily driver.
We've done road trips.
We've done commuting.
We've ran errands with it.
And it's like a normal Mustang, just
with an ungodly amount of power and ridiculous acceleration.
But so long as you don't really experience that,
it's just slightly louder, which is really nice.
Now let's get to testing.
Now the first thing we typically start with is weighing the car.
I know what you're saying, no weigh.
And I'm going to say, yes weigh, the first part of the testing
process.
I was a mile away.
I'm a pro-- pro vehicle tester.
Normally when it comes to vehicle weight,
we just report the figure and move on,
unless there's something significant.
In this case, that significance is the existence of the Carbon
Fiber Track Pack, because it comes with carbon fiber
wheels that are not only much stiffer
than these flow-formed aluminum wheels that this GT500 has,
but they're a lot lighter too.
And that weight comes off one of the most important parts
of the vehicle and that is unsprung mass
around the corners.
You heard about that, google it.
More time than we have to talk about in this video
in particular.
Now, we weighed the Carbon Fiber Track Pack GT500 back
in December.
And it weighed-- wait for it--
4,058 pounds.
And that weight was split--
front, 57%, 43% into the rear.
This GT500 weighed 4,168 pounds, split 56% front and 44% rear.
That's 110 pounds more than a Carbon Fiber Track
Pack, which is less than I would have thought.
But it does make sense when you figure that the Carbon Fiber
Track Pack's biggest weight difference advantage is
those carbon fiber wheels.
So there you go.
Yes weigh.
If you recall from our unboxing video,
the GT500 in the owner's manual explained the proper brake
burnishing procedure.
Why would you do that?
Well, think of it like preparing the braking
system for high speed driving like you
would do on a race track.
We're going to do it now because we have a testing area.
And why not?
Now, how do you do this process?
Well, there's actually two steps to this process.
The first though we can skip because it's
designed for brand new brakes or brand
new pads, which we don't have.
We've got 5,000 miles on this car.
They're set.
But the second step, we have to refer to the notes
I took on my phone.
So we'll ask Arnie about how to get them done.
The second step requires 15 consecutive stops,
back to back, accelerating at three quarter throttle
to 80 miles an hour, and then braking to 20 miles an hour
at 1g of acceleration.
How do you measure 1g?
Well, in most cases that's basically peak braking effort
in most performance cars.
And the GT500, like a lot of performance cars,
actually has a meter on the dash that'll
give us a live G readout.
So I'll try to refer to that.
Let's get started.
And keep in mind, 760 horsepower means
3/4 throttle is a lot of power.
So we probably don't need to spend a lot of time
at three quarter throttle.
[ENGINE REVVING]
Yeah, that happens.
That gets to 80 real quick.
First stop.
[TIRES SQUEALING]
[ENGINE REVVING]
Second stop.
All right, let's get it back to 80.
[TIRES SQUEALING]
That's stop 4.
Tough part is remembering.
[REWINDING]
Doing this repeatedly is going to make somebody nauseous.
Stop 14, stop 15, last stop.
SPEAKER: How was that experience for you, Carlos?
CARLOS LAGO: I'm going to keep inching forward
so I don't stop on hot brakes.
But man, doing 1G stops, and then almost
a G acceleration back-to-back, 15 times
is a recipe for nausea.
Pro tip-- don't do that.
So we've illustrated the brake burnishing procedure.
And how about one more braking run, this time for real.
This time we're going to illustrate an actual emergency
stop from 60 miles an hour.
This is, of course, for illustration purposes,
not for testing.
We've already done that.
But I just want to show you what that looks like,
and then tell you the result.
So our best stop from 60 in this GT500 was 103 feet.
That's of course a little bit longer
than what we got in the Carbon Fiber Track Pack
that we tested previously.
That was 98 feet.
But why is that?
Well, the biggest difference in a car's braking performance
has to do with the tires.
The GT500 with the Carbon Fiber Track Pack
gets really sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2's,
while the standard GT500 gets still good but less
sticky Michelin Pilot Sport 4S.
And that brings up the difference
in braking performance.
103 feet is still really good though.
And most sports cars should aim for that level.
So I'm pretty happy with this performance.
But now let's go to acceleration,
which should be a bit more fun.
Yeah.
Now, the Edmunds testing process,
when it comes to acceleration, we always
start with what we call the key up acceleration run.
And the intention there is to mimic
what happens if you were to just turn the car on, put it
in drive, and mash the gas.
Now when we did that with the GT500, we recorded a 0 to 60
in 3.9 seconds without rollout, 3.7 seconds with rollout.
If you recall, rollout is when you
subtract about a foot of the first initial acceleration
to simulate, more like what happens on a drag strip,
even though we're not trying to measure that.
Don't worry about it.
It's semantics.
Just know that those are the figures
that you'd compared to most car magazines
because they all test with rollout.
But the quarter mile happened in 11.8 seconds
at nearly 130 miles an hour from just putting it in drive
and mashing the gas.
Wow.
Now, if you want to actually care
about making the car go even faster,
the way to do that is make sure you're in drive, of course.
Put the car in Sport Mode.
We do have Launch Control but our team
found it was faster to just do it ourselves.
Traction Control or Advance Track off, suspension in Sport.
Make sure the steering is there too just
for a little bit more control.
Now when you're in this position,
we're also going to put the exhaust in track because you
want to hear this thing.
Now we're in the setup.
You're going to start with applying
a little bit of brake pressure while rolling on that gas
pedal.
You can't just slap the gas pedal.
You have to roll onto it just so the rear tires have a chance.
We have 760 horsepower.
So you've got to give them a chance to do that.
Let's do this.
[ENGINE REVVING]
Light brake pressure, roll on the gas pedal.
[TIRES SQUEALING]
Oh, boy!
[LAUGHING]
So not that I got it exactly right there.
But when you do, like our test team did,
we recorded zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds
without rollout and 3.4 seconds with rollout.
We're going to talk about skid pad last, frankly, because it's
a boring test to watch.
And it's also a boring test to run.
You're just driving in a circle, making
lots of horrific tire noises.
But we're going to talk about it last because it
has to do with the value of the Carbon Fiber Track Package.
If you've been keeping tabs with the results
of this car versus the one we've tested previously,
you might be wondering where that money is going to,
that $18,500.
This car is 110 pounds heavier than the Carbon Fiber Track
Package.
And if you divide that by the cost of the package,
you get $168 per pound.
Yes, it's unsprung weight and there's more to it than that.
But we're just going to leave it simple for the sake of building
a case of absurdity.
Now when you measure braking distances.
This stopped in 103 feet.
And the Carbon Fiber Track Package did 98 feet.
Now if you were to do $1 per foot, that is $3,083.
Now when we talk about acceleration,
it gets even weirder, because to 60 miles an hour,
this GT500 was basically as fast as the Carbon Fiber Track Pack
to 60.
Why is that?
Well, there's a couple of factors at play.
And you can put your weight or your thought
behind a couple of different ones.
So the first up--
760 horsepower and two-drive wheels.
You're traction limited.
No matter how much power you have or how much tire you have,
you're always going to be at that threshold.
And when you're launching it without using Launch Control
because you like doing it manually,
that's just what you're going to get.
There's also another factor at play.
This GT500 has the street alignment
where its tires are basically more vertical.
The Carbon Fiber Track Pack had the track alignment setting,
both were at align in the owner's manual
if you go back and watch our unwrapping video of this car.
Now that track package or that track alignment setting
is going to make the tires bow out a little bit more.
So they work better when you're going around corners
like on a race track.
That's going to hurt acceleration.
And I bring that up to talk about the skid pad.
This GT500 and its street alignment setting averaged
1.02G on this skid pad.
That's a really, really good result for any sports car.
But that Carbon Fiber Track Package GT500 with the track
alignment setting did 1.17G, which was a figure so high we
actually had to double check the data to make sure it was legit.
It's among the highest we've ever recorded.
And that's spectacular performance.
So if you want to know where that $18,500 really goes to.
It's that kind of experience.
It's that road holding and that level of grip.
And it's also a little bit nicer to drive
when you're going at that extreme cornering as well.
So if you're dead set on track days,
that's probably the direction to go.
But for most people like us, this GT500 as it sits
is the right solution.
See you, suckers.
[ENGINE REVVING]