2007 Ford Shelby GT500 Convertible

Hick at Heart

The Shelby GT500 is like the ruggedly handsome high-school kid from a small rural town who made it to Harvard.

The revitalized Mustang is Ford’s finest 21st century contribution to the car world. To celebrate the success of this mega hit, the Special Vehicles Team (SVT) conjured up the wildest steed ever shooed from the Mustang stable, at least for road use.

As the badging attests, the Shelby GT500 is a collaborative effort between well-known Le Mans winner Carroll Shelby and the best and brightest Ford performance enthusiasts. Under a swollen hood there’s a vibrant heart: 485 hp produced by a supercharged and intercooled 5.4-liter V8 similar in design to the engine that powers Ford’s $151,245 GT supercar.

Even though this muscled-up Mustang crowds 4,000 pounds, it still packs the power-to-weight ratio to run competitively with Corvettes and Porsches. The GT500 is, by a wide margin, the least-expensive near-500-hp ride that money can buy. It’s available as a coupe and a convertible.

Exterior

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To be sure that no one confuses the hot Shelby GT500 with V6 Mustangs, Ford emptied its jewelry box on this mojo machine. Graphics galore accentuate the humped hood, wide lower grille, deep air dam and new decklid spoiler: eight white stripes, seven coiled cobras, six SVT identifiers, four GT500 badges, three Shelby nameplates, two Ford logos and one galloping-pony icon. Thankfully, the jewelry box didn’t have partridges in a pear tree.

Not all of the decoration is gratuitous. The horizontal lip at the bottom of the front air dam, the two plastic grates in the hood and the spoiler jutting off the trunk limit aerodynamic lift to 150 pounds at the Shelby GT500’s 155-mph governed top speed.

This car’s exterior is over the top for mature audiences, but the rugged stance, aggressive face and striking wheel-tire package radiate enough charisma to charm the hardest-core law-enforcement officer. Ford designers have truly tapped the burning essence of the original Mustang in their revival edition.

Interior

This Mustang’s dirty little secret is that only kids and briefcases fit in the backseat. According to recent EMS reports, those adults who dared enter the modern Mustang’s rear confines are still awaiting release. The problem is two-fold — an awkwardly narrow entry-exit passage and a roofline that blithely chops through head space.

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Front occupants are better served. Designers took a second stab at interior decor with this flagship, and it shows. Gauge graphics are more legible (though the dials are still located at the bottom of deep tunnels), the tachometer has been moved to the right side of the cluster and bright trim rings wear an elegant matte finish. The metal trim plates on the instrument panel are nicely finished in a painted-dot pattern.

Leather upholstery has a quality feel with contrasting stitching and cobra accents (long the logo for Shelby Mustangs) sewn into the backrests. The snappy two-tone interior features red center panels in the doors and seats surrounded by black borders.

The top of the instrument panel, the center console and armrests can also be swathed in elegant French-seamed leather.

The front seats’ backrests are nicely bolstered with firm stuffing to hold occupants securely in place. Unfortunately, that upgrade did not extend to the bottom cushions; while the SVT sorcerers wished to improve the lower portion of the buckets, such alterations would have necessitated costly and time-consuming safety tests. The result is a slight imbalance during hard cornering: torsos properly restrained, thighs left to fend for themselves.

*This review is based on a Shelby GT500 coupe, whose rigid roof is the only difference from the convertible model.