Newest GT500 is the most powerful street-legal production Ford ever and packs more horsepower than the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.
The wait is over, people! After months of highlighting the performance tech in the 2020 Shelby GT500 and hinting at its final output figures, Ford has finally released its official engine stats. The 5.2-liter borrowed from the GT350 (and equipped with a cross-plane crank to handle the GT500’s extra grunt) produces supercharged 760 horsepower and 625 lb-ft.
According to Ford, those numbers make the GT500 its most powerful street-legal car ever – even more potent than the big-bucks GT, whose high-output 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 cranks out 647 horsepower and 550 lb-ft. Now it makes perfect sense why Ford claimed the 2020 GT500 will be capable of hitting 60 mph in the mid-three-second range and nail a sub-11-second quarter-mile time.
If you do the math, the GT500’s V8 generates 146 horsepower and 120 lb-ft per liter, making it what Ford calls “the most power- and torque-dense supercharged production V8 engine in the world.” Don’t put that calculator away just yet. While the GT500 may not pump out as much as the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye’s supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi (which has 797 horsepower and 707 lb-ft), it does beat it on a per-liter basis, topping the Mopar monster’s 129 horsepower/liter and 114 lb-ft/liter.
The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 also has a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 and even though it has a 25 lb-ft edge on the GT500, it’s down 110 ponies. Its per-liter horsepower and lb-ft figure of 105 is significantly below the GT500’s specs. Even the almighty 755-horsepower/715-lb-ft Corvette ZR1’s figures of 122 and 115, respectively, fall short of the GT500’s numbers.
Ford’s big announcement makes us sure of a couple of other things. One is that aftermarket companies are going to race (no pun intended) to create upgrades that will make the GT500 even faster. That means the second a private buyer or a tuning shop gets ahold of a 2020 GT500, they’re going to roll it onto a dyno to get baseline stats. We wouldn’t be surprised if doing that reveals that the impressive figures that Ford released today are slightly…let’s just say “conservative.”
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
