According to Shelby American, the company will offer just 50 Signature Edition Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snakes to honor the last Mustang GT500. But what a send-off it shall be.

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One of the baddest Mustangs to hit the streets in my opinion. Not just the signature series, but mostly all the SS cars. Awesome machines.

 

And I still haven't got one.

 

Love the lowered stance, love the hood. I think the S197 body design is going to go down in history as one of the best Mustang designs ever. Just a great looking car.

 

I will agree with that 100%!

 

45K + the cost of the car, like all SAI packages, a lot of fluff in this one.
Hp #'s are at the crank, & it doesn't come with a dyno sheet.

 

Agreed it looks awesome. My favorite styling is 2013/2014 personally. The upcoming GT350 might challenge that, but not yet

 

If Ken Miles and Phil Remington were alive today, I think they would look at Shelby American and drop their heads in shame.

 

Care to explain?

 

SAI has become nothing more than a marketing & licensing company. The reason they became legends was because of their on track performance.

Ken Miles is the lesser known but arguably more talented of the drivers then either bondurant or gurney.

Phil Remington was the engineer that made it possible.

 

Well to be fair, Carroll Shelby was a legend in racing before he ever took on the GT350 project in 1965 at Ford. In fact it was his reputation arising from the AC Cobra days that made him a reputable name that Ford wanted to put on the Mustang. The idea was to give the Mustang some serious credibility among the racing and enthusiast community in the early days of the muscle car era and Trans Am racing.

While it's true that GT350's were Mustangs that were modified with equipment developed for and used on race tracks it is also true that from the very beginning these cars were intended to be sold to the general public. To that end the same is true today. Shelby American offers modified Mustangs that among other things will increase the horsepower of a V8 Mustang from 624 horsepower to well over 1000 horsepower.

I would think that given the products available at SAI that they are giving their customers some serious cars. I can't speak to the reputation or skill of drivers that worked for SAI then or now. I wish that Trans Am racing was more popular in the U.S. so that we could at least get some television coverage of it and see these cars in action. It certainly is more interesting than NASCAR racing.

 

These articles may shed some additional perspective.

Phil Remington

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...hil-remington/

Ken Miles: And read about Shelby's idea for a tie at Lemans.

http://www.speedwaymedia.com/?p=70041

 

Thanks MJJ. I always knew that Shelby was more of a good salesman and promoter of himself than anything else. I recall the story about the AC Cobras in which he told Ford that he had a deal for the bodies all sorted out so he needed their engines and he told the AC folks that he had the deal for the engines all sorted out so he needed their bodies. In reality neither deal had yet been approved. So it doesn't surprise me that there was a guy behind the scenes at Shelby like Remington. There is always that guy behind the scenes of some big name. The same is true even today. What makes Ken Block so great is not just his driving skill but the fact that someone builds those cars that enable him to go hooning in. That and lots of cash support from Monster.

What I really found interesting was that Remington was color blind. That's because I'm color blind too and I can tell you from experience that when you're color blind the world has tendency to tell you that you can't do a lot of things. I think people have this idea that color blind people see in black and white or some nonsense like that. We see colors just like everyone else. I can see that this webpage we are on is comprised primarily of red, white and blue with a race red Mustang at the top. What we have difficulty with is certain shades of red or green. Even though they appear to be the same shade of red or green to us, they may seem like different shades of red or green to you. Well how does that affect a man's ability to work on a car? The answer is that it doesn't but don't tell that to the powers that be because if they find out you're color blind you will be deemed unfit to be an engineer, a Police Officer, electrician, auto mechanic and a variety of other jobs that we are fully capable of doing but excluded from due to some silly bias. So I congratulate Remington on cheating on the exam and showing the world just what a color blind man is capable of. By the way I paint oil paintings in my spare time. I've never had anyone say that the hues I use in my work don't mix well in the final product.

But enough about that. Thanks so much for posting those articles. Really good stuff. I suspect that even today there is some guy or group of guys at SAI that the world will never hear about but who are in fact responsible for churning out some of the great performance levels we see in their cars.

 

I was in awe of the SuperSnake conversion when I first started looking at them for my '13. I liked pretty much everything about it except for the terribly fitted seat covers. I then visited a shop here in town and got to know several people who have SS conversions as well as people who decided to do their own work via less expensive means.

I've since realized that, while the hardware used in the SS conversions is quality equipment and tests well, it's rarely maximized by Shelby American and the lack of a dyno sheet provided with the conversion is a problem for someone like myself who needs to know what maximums the car is capable of producing. A run on the dyno isn't that taxing to a vehicle and it's a way of providing verified numbers for the build they sell you instead of quoted HP numbers that you then have to either verify yourself or accept on faith.

I think it's a very overpriced conversion for what's done to the vehicle, considering I will have a 800+ HP car at the crank with a suitably supportive suspension and racing tires capable of handling more power and torque than the SS conversion tires for less than half the price they would have charged me for their competitive conversion--and my computer will be tuned by John Lund, arguably the best Coyote and Trinity engine tuner alive and someone I've met personally and have discussed such matters with. Just my opinion on the matter.

 

Did you get his autograph?

 

Dufus.

 

History lessons notwithstanding, I prefer the "regular" GT500 and the extra 45K could be better spent on other toys. Also, those faux tacked on scoops (rear & window) are "played." While I once liked them, and actually had them installed, they're getting real old IMO.

 

I've got the slotted quarter window cover on mine. I personally wouldn't go with the scoop style just because it creates such a bad blind spot on the car. It's hard enough to see out of the slotted cover as it is. I've never been a fan of the fake side air inlets personally. They give the car a good look to be sure but personally I feel that if there is going to be an "air inlet" there that it should be a real air inlet and not just a decorative piece.

At least on the Boss 302 package you had real air ducting for the front brakes although I don't know about the rear brakes. One of our Boss owners could address that.

Overall I like the look of the Shelby car a lot and at the same time I agree with kcoTiger. We all know that companies like Shelby and Saleen are essentially using already developed aftermarket parts to increase the horsepower and there's probably just a little in house tweaking along with that but probably not much. So if you have the ability to add these performance mods yourself than absolutely you will save a great deal of money over buying the Shelby package. At the same time we all know that there are plenty of rich people out there who just want to pay for the name and don't have a clue how to change their own oil much less put a supercharger kit on their engine. Hell I wouldn't attempt a supercharger upgrade on my own just because of the tuning involved.