From its debut to a public who waited with baited breath to catch their first glimpse
of it at the World’s Fair in 1964, the Ford Mustang has always been popular with tuners
and petrolheads looking to extract as much muscle as possible from America’s premier
steel bicep.
Virtually every big-name tuning house in the world has taken a stab at the ‘Stang, from
Saleen to Hennessey Performance, but of all those there’s one name that stands out above
the rest: Shelby.
It was founder Carroll Shelby who had the bright idea of dropping a big Ford V8 into
an AC sports car and in doing so creating the Shelby Cobra.
It was Shelby who transformed Ford’s GT40 racing car from a bit of a dud into a multiple-times
Le Mans winner, and so when Ford decided that its first-generation Mustang needed a bit
of a tune up, there was only one man for the job.
It’s a little ironic that while the original Mustang offered aggressive sports car styling
and a big V8, it was actually built from a medley of leftover parts.
Sure, it looked the business but underneath it wasn’t actually all that much of a sports
car.
You could argue that even the latest sixth-gen version, even with its independent rear suspension
and what have you, is kind of the same.
It’s still a Mustang, it’s still a big lump of pig iron with a big lump of an engine
sitting out the front and compared to the best sports coupes and super-saloons around,
it seems a bit…
Basic.
Not so with the GT350R.
I mean, yeah, here in the inside apart from the Shelby snake logo and these bucket seats
this is close to exactly the same as the regular Mustang, but it’s what underneath the skin
that really counts.
The original GT350 focused on three things: light weight, big power, big brakes.
It’s much the same here, with race-bred components like an injection-moulded carbon
fibre front end, massive 15.5-inch six-piston brake callipers.
There’s no rear seats, no air con and it comes with the option of ultra-light carbon
fibre wheels built using technology developed for the NASA Space Shuttle programme.
That’s not even the coolest bit…
Most excitingly of all, and key to this car, is a very special new motor.
While the stock Mustang uses a 5.0-litre V8 famously referred to as the ‘Coyote’ motor,
the GT350 gets an engine that’s different from any other V8 Ford makes.
Called the ‘Voodoo’, it has a 5.2-litre displacement and a flat-plane crank construction,
the same used by Ferrari’s V8-engined Formula One cars.
The result is a car that sounds very unlike any other V8 muscle car, and which goes unlike
any other too…
Let me show you what I mean.
As a result of that flat-crank design, the Voodoo can rev higher and harder than a standard
V8, with this engine generating a maximum of 526bhp and 582Nm of torque and it redlines
at an absolutely phenomenal 8,250rpm.
It’s the most non-turbocharged V8 that Ford has ever made and it.
is.
absolutely.
ballistic.
That hyperbolic amount of power goes straight to the rear wheels via a heavy-duty Tremac
manual gearbox, which has been almost entirely reworked to ensure it can cope with the sheer
output of the Voodoo engine.
As a result, it can wallop its way to 62mph from a standing start in just 4.4 seconds,
which makes it faster than the likes of a Lamborghini Gallardo, a 997 GT3 or a V8-powered
Audi R8 Spyder.
To use that oh-so-American benchmark measure of speed, the quarter mile, this thing will
do it in 11.96 seconds before hitting a top speed of 155mph.
Now, I know what you’re thinking ha-ha-all-torque-no-traction-cars-and-coffee-ha-ha, but while straight-line performance has always
been a muscle car hallmark, it’s the way that the car matches power with uncanny agility
that really sets the GT350 apart.
Part of that is thanks to a bespoke aerodynamic kit with a range of aggressive add-ons, like
a front splitter and a carbon fibre rear wing which actually generates more downforce than
a 911 GT3.
That presses it into the tarmac and really helps make the best use of all that awesome
torque.
It's quite a stiff thing too, but the magnetic suspension does a great job of smoothing things
out, here on the track at least.
The steering is quite X, X and X but it’s funny – even though the GT350 is kinda like
the ultimate iteration of the modern muscle car, it’s possibly as far away from the
classic muscle car as is possible.
Still, it’s a brute alright.
Violently quick and yet with an uncanny ability to chew up and spit out a track like the best
of Europe’s performance saloons, in the GT350R the Mustang has performance as mythical
as the legend which precedes it.
The only real problem?
Well, you can’t have one.
At least not properly.
For us here in the UK, you can look into having one imported on your behalf but be prepared
for mountains of paperwork, huge expenses and, of course, the steering wheel being on
the wrong side.
A massive pain in the posterior it’ll be, but then in return you will have access to
what’s arguably the best version of the Ford Mustang ever made.
Worth it?
Worth it.