A single Mustang body hid three completely different Shelby GT500s between 2007 and 2014, each one built around a different engine strategy. One version was limited to barely 1,000 U.S. units. The final year closed out an entire era of solid-axle Shelby Mustangs for good.
Ford revived the Shelby GT500 name in 2007 with a supercharged V8 rated at exactly 500 horsepower — a number that felt, at the time, like the absolute ceiling for a factory Mustang. It wasn’t. Over the next seven years, Ford and Shelby quietly rebuilt the GT500 three separate times, enlarging the engine, swapping superchargers, and chasing bigger numbers until the final 2013-2014 version left the factory rated at 662 horsepower and 631 lb-ft of torque. Somewhere in the middle sits a 1,000-unit tribute car built to answer a question from 1968, and a mid-cycle jump that GT500 owners still argue was the real sweet spot. One body style, one nameplate, three genuinely different muscle cars.
The GT500 name itself goes back to 1967, when Carroll Shelby’s shop took Ford’s new Mustang fastback and turned it into a big-block performance flagship, following it in 1968 with the GT500KR — “King of the Road.” When Ford resurrected the badge nearly four decades later for the 2007 model year, it wasn’t just borrowing a name; it was setting up a run that would eventually mirror almost everything that made the original special, right down to a limited-edition KR tribute and a steady, generation-by-generation chase for more power.
The 2007-2009 GT500: 500 Horsepower Felt Like Enough
The video this article draws from, “2007 – 2014 Shelby GT500 – All the facts & which one to buy” from Tony’s Fords and Mustangs, treats the GT500 less like a single model and more like a lineage — walking through each generation’s real specs rather than just repeating Ford’s launch-year press releases. The host also takes a lightly modified 2011 GT500 out for a drive, pointing out how far the factory suspension and brakes could be pushed on a car that, on paper, looks like the “in-between” year squeezed between two more famous versions.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When Ford and Shelby brought the GT500 back for the 2007 model year, it rode on the then-new S197 Mustang platform and used a 5.4-liter supercharged V8 rated at 500 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque — big numbers for a mainstream American coupe at the time, and enough to make the GT500 the most powerful production Mustang Ford had ever sold. That basic drivetrain carried over largely unchanged through the 2009 model year, giving buyers three model years of what amounted to the same car: a 500-hp supercharged V8 wrapped in retro-styled sheet metal that deliberately echoed the original 1967-68 Shelby Mustangs, right down to the hood scoop and fog-lamp-filled grille.
It’s easy to forget now, after a decade of 700-plus-horsepower Mustangs, just how large that 500-hp figure loomed in 2007. For three model years, it was the number that defined the car — enough to run the quarter-mile in the low 13s stock, and enough to make the GT500 the fastest regular-production Mustang buyers could walk into a dealership and order. It stayed that way right up until Shelby decided the base car wasn’t finished.
The GT500KR: Ford’s Answer to a 1968 Legend, Limited to 1,571 Cars
In 2008, Shelby and Ford’s SVT team built a tribute to the original 1968 GT500KR using a reworked version of the same 5.4-liter supercharged V8, tuned to 540 horsepower through a cold-air intake and a revised engine calibration, along with a stripped-down interior, a carbon-fiber hood, and a Baja-style center racing stripe that paid direct homage to the ’68 car. The number wasn’t chosen at random: Ford and Shelby planned 1,000 GT500KR units for the U.S. market in 2008, followed by 571 more in 2009, landing on a total of 1,571 cars — a figure Ford and Shelby said was chosen to match the production run of the original 1968 GT500KR. Depending on the source, the actual 2008 build count ran slightly over the planned 1,000 once prototypes and export units are counted, with total KR production across both years landing around 1,700 cars once international and military allocations are included.
For two model years, the GT500KR quietly outmuscled the regular-production GT500 by 40 horsepower using nothing more exotic than better airflow and a smarter tune — proof that Ford still had meaningful room to work with inside the same basic engine architecture, long before anyone touched displacement.
2010-2012: A Quiet Jump Nobody Markets Today
Ford gave the GT500 a visual refresh for 2010 — new front and rear fascias, a reworked hood with functional vents, HID headlamps, and chassis tuning changes — and by 2011 had pushed the supercharged 5.4-liter to 550 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque, a jump that never got the marketing fanfare of the 2007 launch or the 2013 redesign but represents a genuine mid-cycle leap in both power and chassis refinement. Ford also widened the standard wheel and tire package and offered an SVT Performance Package aimed squarely at track driving, giving the 2011-2012 cars noticeably sharper handling than the early 2007-2009 cars without sacrificing the solid-axle rear end’s drag-strip-friendly simplicity.
Owners in the comments of the video this article is built around keep returning to this exact window. More than one GT500 buyer singles out the 2011-2012 cars as “the sweet spot” — modern enough to avoid the earlier car’s rougher edges, powerful enough to not feel like a compromise next to the final-generation car, and generally cheaper on the used market than the 2013-2014 models that followed. One owner who has put thousands of miles on a daily-driven 2012 calls it the best value in the entire eight-year run.
2013-2014: The 662-Horsepower Ending
For the car’s final two model years, Ford and Shelby enlarged the supercharged V8 from 5.4 liters to 5.8 liters, fitted a higher-capacity Eaton TVS supercharger running roughly 14 psi of boost, and sent the GT500 out the door rated at 662 horsepower and 631 lb-ft of torque — for a brief window, the most powerful supercharged production V8 engine in the world. It was a 162-horsepower gain over the original 2007 car, achieved without ever changing the Mustang’s basic body style, and it turned the GT500 into a car capable of running well past 190 mph in the right conditions.
The 2013-2014 GT500 also closed out an entire era for the Mustang lineup: it was the last Shelby GT500 built on a solid rear axle before Ford moved the Mustang to independent rear suspension for the 2015 redesign. For buyers who care about that distinction, the final-generation GT500 represents the end of the simpler, drag-strip-oriented rear suspension that every Shelby Mustang had used since 1965 — a detail that matters more to some shoppers than the extra horsepower does.
What Makes the Full Run Worth Understanding
Treating the 2007-2014 Shelby GT500 as one car misses what actually happened over those eight years: Ford used the same basic Mustang body to work through three distinct engineering philosophies, from a straightforward supercharged 5.4-liter, to a limited-run anniversary tribute, to a genuinely larger and more powerful 5.8-liter closer with a different rear suspension destiny waiting on the horizon. Buyers cross-shopping these cars today are really choosing between three different driving experiences wearing the same badge, which is exactly the ground the video above covers — walking through factory specs year by year and riding along in a lightly modified 2011 car to show how much room Ford still left on the table even in the “tamer” middle years.
Owners in the video’s comments back this up with real ownership experience. Multiple 2011-2012 owners call that window the best value in the lineup, citing daily-driven cars with tens of thousands of trouble-free miles. Several 2013-2014 owners point to the 662-hp rating and 631 lb-ft of torque as worth the premium, with at least one convertible owner noting their car came with the factory track package, Recaro seats, and a light bar — options that didn’t exist on the earliest cars. A few owners of the rare 2008-2009 GT500KR describe theirs as family heirlooms rather than daily drivers, which tracks with a production run that never cracked 1,000 cars in a single U.S. model year.
Either way, the GT500’s eight-year run left behind something rare in the muscle car world: a single nameplate with three legitimately different cars hiding behind it, each with its own case for being the one to own.
Used values track this same three-way split today: early 2007-2009 cars are the most affordable way into a factory supercharged Mustang, GT500KRs trade as collector pieces well above regular GT500 money because so few were built, and clean 2013-2014 cars command a premium tied directly to that 662-hp rating and the car’s status as the final solid-axle Shelby Mustang.
Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Related posts:
Ford Killed the Shelby GT500 Twice — The Comeback That Made It the Most Powerful Mustang Ever Built
The Smoke Never Stops: Inside the 60-Year-Old Ritual Behind Every Muscle Car Burnout in America
Mustang vs. Camaro: We Scored Every Decade Since 1964 — The Final Tally Only Has One Car Left Standing
This Barn-Find 1968 Shelby GT500KR Just Outsold Nearly Every Muscle Car at a $198 Million Barrett-Jackson Auction
Ford Built the Most Powerful Mustang It Had Ever Made in 2022 — Then Killed the Shelby Name a Year Later
Ford Killed the Shelby Mustang in 1970 — It Took 37 Years and 760 Horsepower to Bring It Back
This 1967 Shelby GT500 Sat Gutted in a Nebraska Barn for 40 Years — Then a Stranger Spent $141,000 So Its Owners Could Finally Drive It
A Supercharged Hellcat Challenger Just Lined Up Against a Numbers-Matching Hemi Cuda, and the Result Was Not What Anyone Expected
The Real Reason So Many ‘67 Shelby GT500s for Sale Aren’t Real Shelbys
Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s 7.1-Liter Mustang Wasn’t the Loudest Car in This Sound Reel — an 850-HP Shelby GT500 SVT Took That Crown
