December car of the month: 2021 Ford Shelby GT500

by Steven Perez

posted on December 26, 2021

The King Cobra

Any Mustang bearing the Shelby name means business, and the Shelby GT500 is king of them all. It boasts quite the superlative: the most powerful Ford production car ever. It used to be that Mustangs, Shelby models in particular, were all power and little finesse. But while the current GT500 certainly has the straight-line grunt of an upper crust muscle car, it’s also quite a serious sports car.

Take Daniel’s 2021 Mustang Shelby GT500. Its blend of extraordinary speed and bonafide athleticism shows how far the muscle car has advanced in democratizing performance. The GT500 has a power figure normally found in quarter-million-dollar supercars, but can be bought for 75 grand. Meet our car of the month for this December!

2021 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

The main party trick of Daniel’s GT500 lurks under its louvered hood — a supercharged 5.2L V8 that puts out a monstrous 760 hp and 625 lb-ft of torque — the most powerful engine ever stuffed into a Ford. The Predator, as the motor’s fittingly called, brings this Shelby to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds and barks a thundering soundtrack through the exhaust.

Loudness in every sense is a hallmark of the GT500. Daniel’s car is finished in Race Red paint with black stripes, and with numerous aero pieces and the aforementioned louvered hood, it’s not a subtle vehicle. An angry facelift, lowered stance, and copious Cobra badges set it apart from standard Mustangs.

While this Shelby commands an intoxicating proclivity for acceleration, it’s also incredibly impressive in the handling department, by all accounts. Owners and journalists report quicker lap times than far more exotic machines, doubly impressive considering the GT500’s 4,100-pound curb weight (please remember driving a car booked on Turo on a track is strictly prohibited).

In the real world, it’s a tall order to use anything close to this Shelby’s full strength. And the EPA says it manages 12 mpg in the city and 18 mpg on the highway. These are pretty poor numbers (of course they are), but the GT500 isn’t much less efficient than the competing top-brass muscle cars of today — the Camaro ZL1 is EPA-rated at 13/21 mpg, and the Challenger SRT Hellcat gets 13/22 mpg.

Sitting in the cabin, it’s fairly similar to what you’d find on a non-Shelby Mustang. This one has heated and cooled sport seats and an alcantara-wrapped steering wheel with paddle shifters for the seven-speed automatic transmission. Yes, the Shelby GT500 only comes in automatic, which may cause dismay among the purist crowd, but it makes this a far more manageable beast to wrangle on the road.

This is the latest and greatest in American muscle. The Mustang Shelby GT500 is a legendary model with immense pedigree, and what a joy it is that Ford is still willing to make such an absurd and magnificent machine. If you find yourself in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, give Daniel’s Shelby a whirl to experience the GT500 in all its glory.

*Daily price subject to change

Steven Perez

Steven is an avid car guy and content maker at Turo. Between Golden State Warriors games he can be found getting lost somewhere in California.

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