While the general theme of the scene at the moment is a worry over fuel economy and what’s going to happen in the next five to ten years, apparently nobody at Ford’s Mustang group has really cared, because they’ve been busy preparing to bring the GT350’s big, bad brother out onto the scene to come and play with the likes of the Mopar camp. Hellcats and Demons did exactly what happened fifty years ago: they stirred up competition. Competition drives the build for better cars, and we win as a result, so consider this the return salvo for the supercharged Hemi. And believe that it’s pissed off. The GT350R’s 526 horsepower Voodoo flat-plane crank V8 is nothing to sneeze at…it’ll scald the tires at will and screams in a way that bothers gearheads like a well-placed moan in a movie bothers a teenage boy. But that same figure will get sand kicked in the face by Hellcats all day long and even the Camaro ZL1 can get in on that act. So what does this new top-down image tell us?
First thing is first: that hood vent is going to be dumping a lot of heat. That’s no shock, the Hellcats do the same thing. A supercharged mill is a given…the prior generation GT500’s 662-horse Trinity mill was a hair trigger that would do serious damage in a straight line. The body kit looks like an amplified version of what the GT350R comes with, and hopefully rear seat delete and frame bracing can at least be an option, if not a standard. Speaking of standard, we hope that a six-speed is still available for those who want to boil hides the old-fashioned way. And as for the face…is it strange to say that I see just a hint of AC Cobra with the monster mouth?
Please, please be appearing at SEMA. Watching this thing repave the Las Vegas Convention Center will make my year.
Either something bad is going to cause a massive drop, or the race is to see who can bring a thousand horsepower to the market reliably enough to get a warranty.