Riding Shotgun in the 2015 Shelby GT350R Mustang
Last week I had a chance to go for a ride in the passenger seat of the 2015 Ford Shelby GT350R Mustang at Grattan Raceway and after spending an afternoon rocketing around that intricate 2-mile road course, I can testify that the new Shelby Mustang is every bit as impressive as the company suggests. As an automotive journalist, I have had the pleasure of riding in a great many high performance cars that were being piloted by professionals and only two felt more planted than the GT350R Mustang – the Dodge Viper TA and the Lexus LFA.
My first ride in the 2015 Shelby GT350R Mustang came at Grattan Raceway, with a member of the GT350R development team handling the driving. Ford had 7 of the development guys on hand to show us how well the Mustang got around the 2-mile track and, as these were the guys who helped make this new Shelby handle so well – they know the car better than anyone. We began with a pace lap of sorts, where the driver explained how the run would go while warming up the tires. About halfway through that first lap, he switches to track mode and puts the hammer down – rocketing through the final few turns of the track before blasting down the long front straight. At the end of that straight away is a hard right hand turn and much to my surprise, the driver was able to drive the GT350R much, much deeper into the turn than I would have expected. In fact, the driver routinely drove the new Shelby R Mustang deeper into turns than I would expect, showing just how well the high tech braking system works. Also, those deep braking points were consistent through each session, showing that the brakes could go all day without losing grip.
Speaking of grip, I have never been in any stock muscle car that could slice through a hard corner as well as the new Shelby GT350R Mustang. With each turn, the driver entered and exited each turn a little harder, pressing me to the bolsters of the Recaro seats, but at no point did the car ever slide. The only perceptible loss of grip came when the 5.2L flat plane V8 overpowered the tires coming out of a turn and for the first time ever, I was able to say “that Mustang literally handles like it is on a rail”. The MagnaRide suspension system adjusts so quickly that the Shelby GT350R is able to carve back and forth through the turns without any body roll. Even through the hard turns that allow for gradual acceleration coming out, the new Shelby just kept pulling harder and harder without any side to side weight transfer.
Most impressively, Grattan has a few points where a car going as fast as the Shelby GT350R Mustang can get off of the ground, but the MagnaRide suspension setup allowed the dampers to stretch way out and still smoothly cushion the landing on the other side. Some cars will bounce and lose grip on the back side of a hill like that, but the GT350R instantly gripped the track and shot into the next hard turn.
The videos below show the 2015 Ford Shelby GT350R Mustang in action at Grattan, with the first video shot from my helmet camera and the second shot from the driver’s side rear quarter panel of the car. The in-car really offers the best chance to see and hear the car, including the occasional spin of the rear tires. Also, if you watch carefully, there are several points where you can see the car nearly leave the ground.
I can comfortably and confidently say that I have never been in a factory-stock American muscle car that would grip the corners and stop as quickly as the 2015 Shelby GT350R Mustang, so while some other muscle cars in the past have packed more power and more straight-line potential – I expect that the Shelby GT350R Mustang will set muscle car lap records all over the world. It is lighter and more powerful than the Camaro Z28, so when coupled with the cornering and braking abilities, I’m expecting that we will see this Mustang beat the Camaro’s time on the Nürburgring.
