"Driving a 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 at the Nurburgring Made Me Jealous of Americans"
Ford won't officially sell the Shelby GT500 in Europe, despite the fact that it's fully capable of embarrassing supercars at the Nürburgring.
The window of my Nürburg office begins to vibrate menacingly. I look up from the screen. Strange resonances, never seen before in my 11-year tenure, flow back and forth along the shelves. Cameras, trophies and assorted motorsport detritus all begin to harmonize with the hand-built 5.2-liter “Predator” motor lurking on the street outside. Even the screen of my computer blurs momentarily as the owner blips the throttle again. My ride is here.
I grab a helmet, a GoPro, and a Nürburgring lap ticket. Only my last dregs of self-control prevent me from running. Instead, I stroll outside to witness my first-ever 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in the flesh.
Considering how much my over-500-year-old office building just rattled, it’s really no surprise to me that this 760-hp beast didn’t make it to Ford’s official European lineup. Back in 2019, as Vaughn Gittin Jr. blasted an early example up the hillclimb at the refined and gentlemanly Goodwood Festival of Speed, Ford Performance marketing manager Jim Ownes confirmed that the headline Mustang wouldn’t make it to the Old Country. Ownes cited environmental and pollution standards far stricter than those in North America, Mexico, and the Middle East. That may not be a surprising start to this story, but trust me when I say everything that comes next is part of the biggest surprise of my long automotive career.
Some context: I’ve driven a few sixth-generation Mustangs around the Nürburgring, and found the 2015 base models similar to, maybe even superior to, a 2007 E92-generation BMW M3 in performance. Old news. I enjoyed their brash American styling, but nothing was surprising. The engine was the best part of the formula; the steering and cockpit were weak points.
So imagine my shock, and picture the growing grin across my face, as I’m driving this 2020 Shelby GT500 around the Nordschleife for the first ever time. Of course the acceleration is bordering on insane, and naturally the soundtrack is akin to an orgasmic duet between a NASCAR stocker and an IHRA dragster. That’s a given.
But the steering is direct and feelsome as we navigate the cambers and bumps of Hatzenbach. My fingertips can feel what those huge 305-width Michelins Pilot Sport 4s up front are doing, and the signals are bouncing around an open loop between palms and spinal cord at the speed of light. The front of my brain can concentrate on the owner/passenger’s hilarious grin, or the lovely graphic representing the temperature of the 2.65-liter supercharger’s oil (rock-solid, all day, thanks for asking). The steering of this 760-hp Mustang is, and I say this with all the clichéd gravitas it deserves, intuitive. The body control is bordering on brilliant, and the traction is deeply impressive. Within seconds I’m hitting full throttle long before the steering is straight. On my first lap ever in this car, that insane torque is flowing seamlessly, magically even, to the rear 315s without a slide or a squiggle.
And the Tremec dual-clutch-transmission? It might lack the theater (and recoil) of the trigger-happy Porsche PDK system, but it’s still technically faultless on the racetrack. Shifts are sometimes imperceptible, and the rest of the time just smooth. The brakes? I don’t think I even warmed them up. This is the Über-Stang, and I’m smitten.
(photo credit: racetracker.de)
