The Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R Earned Its Stripes (Road & Track)
I wish I could've been a fly on the wall of the dyno room when engineers first fired up this V-8. It must've been hilarious, hearing this mad thing for the first time, all 8250 revs of it. The folks at Ford Performance had to know they'd created something truly special.
Even as an outsider, it was exciting when little bits of information on the new GT350 first trickled out into the public. Ford is bringing back the GT350 name? It must be serious about making a track car. And wait, it's getting a flat-plane crank? In a Mustang? That's Ferrari stuff. Then the sound clips came out. Holy hell, it sounds like the spawn of the Mustang GT's V-8 and a Cosworth DFV.
The hype was real. Thankfully, the reality was better. After the fast-but-crude GT500 of 2013-2014, we were pleased to see Ford make a Mustang that could handle, one that more than lived up to its legendary mid-Sixties namesake. It quickly wormed its way into our hearts, with the GT350R winning our 2016 Performance Car of the Year award in a particularly stacked field.
But all good things must come to an end. Ford ended GT350 production for 2021, presumably to focus on the (also brilliant) GT500 and an all-new Mustang which reportedly will arrive next year. An understandable decision, but sad nonetheless. The last GT350s would be offered with a Heritage Edition package that revived the Wimbledon White and Guardsman Blue livery that defined the original. Most of my coworkers groaned and complained of nostalgia-baiting when they first saw it. A hopeless romantic, I fell in love.
An opportunity to say goodbye to the GT350 came last November in the form of this GT350R …
(photo credit: DW Burnett / Puppyknuckles - Car & Driver)
