Gt500 mustang1/21/2024 Shelby's Mustangs have come a long way in three years-from adolescence to maturity. But then we thought back on the earlier GT 350s and realized that what the old Shelby Mustang does with difficulty, the GT 500 does easily. That's only 2/10ths of a second quicker than the Mustang 390 automatic ( C/D, November '65) and last year's GT 350H automatic ( C/D, May '66), and not quite as fast as the original GT 350 4- speed ( C/D, May '65). And when it only turned 15.0 at 95, we were a bit disappointed. So we braced ourselves when we stuck our editorial foot into the first production GT 500. And the same car cut a quarter-mile in 13.6 seconds at 106 mph. Seven liters in a Mustang! The early GT 500 engineering prototype was the fastest car ever to lap Ford’s twisty handling loop, except for the GT 40s, of course. The GT 500 is not a racing car, although but for a few subtle differences its engine is the same as the one that propelled Shelby’s Fords to victory at Le Mans. It’s noisy, balky, and an oil burner at normal highway speeds. Few people would be happy with the 427 unless they were racing it. The 428 is a passenger-car engine, and nearly $1000 cheaper than the 427. The 427 is a racing engine, full of the kind of intestinal fortitude that makes it capable of enduring 500 miles at Daytona and 24 hours at Le Mans. Both have the same external dimensions, but the 427 is more oversquare, with a bore and stroke of 4.23 x 3. In fact, they are two entirely different engines. That sounds like a hair better than the 427. Please note that the Cobra Le Mans engine displaces 428 cubic inches. Somebody is telling a little white half-truth. The car is called the GT 500 and its engine is called the Cobra Le Mans. Why not, reasoned Shelby, use this engine in the '67 Shelby Mustang? Why not indeed. Ford also builds a 428 V-8 on the same block with a bore and stroke of 4.13 x 3.98 inches. Which is the whole point of 7-liter Fords, Cobras, and now, Shelby Mustangs.įor '67, Ford offered the Mustang with their tried-and-true 390 V-8, which has a bore and stroke of 4.05 x 3. 485–but it was much more tautly stressed and, therefore, fragile. The Italian engine developed almost as much horsepower as the Ford–425 hp vs. Ferrari V-12s with multiple carburetion and four overhead camshafts. What the 427s had beaten was a team of 270 cu. A year later, Ford 427s swept the first three places at the French classic, with Shelby’s two entries dead-heating the final lap. The Europeans hooted and jeered at the bulky, heavy, unsophisticated V-8 with its pushrods and single four-barrel carburetor. That June, at Le Mans, two of Ford’s rear-engined GT prototypes appeared with the big 427 instead of the 289. Early in 1965, Shelby announced the Cobra II with a 427 cu. By the end of the season, at Nassau, he had another one bolted together. The experiment came to rest, sorely bent, against a palm tree, but Miles persisted. At Sebring in 1964, he shoehorned a Ford 427 NASCARized engine into a Cobra roadster. One of the more expensive ways was the Daytona coupe body. When the Cobra 289 peaked out on the racetrack, there were several ways of making it go faster–most expensive, one cheap. The old corollary to that old adage, “There’s no substitute for cubic inches,” is “except rectangular money”–and who would know better than Carroll Shelby. Ford Mustang: A History in Accelerating to 60 MPH.2007 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500: Ultra Retro.Tested: 1965 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 Sharpens Up.
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