 |
A modern Hellcat Challenger and a numbers-matching Hemi Cuda meet on the same strip, decades apart in engineering but chasing the identical goal. Add a vintage Mustang, a classic Charger, and a Shelby into the mix, and the quarter mile becomes a real referendum on old-school power versus modern boost. The results are not as predictable as the spec sheets suggest.
In 2013, Cobras, Daytona Coupes, and Mustangs gathered to celebrate one of the boldest bets in racing history: Carroll Shelby’s decision that American muscle could beat Ferrari on its home turf. Only six original Daytona Coupes were ever built, and one of them delivered America’s first World Manufacturers’ Championship for GT racing in 1965. What made designer Peter Brock’s 90-day sprint to create that shape so consequential is a story worth knowing before you walk the show field.
A Shelby GT500 Mustang showed up at Byron Dragway looking for a fight and found two of them, a supercharged Hellcat Charger and a track-tuned ZL1 Camaro lined up on back-to-back passes. Both runs came down to tenths of a second, the kind of margin that settles arguments instead of starting new ones. The Shelby crossed first both times, but the numbers tell a closer story than the final results suggest. Watch both passes and judge the margins yourself.
Carroll Shelby, the mastermind behind the iconic Shelby muscle cars, transformed the automotive world with his genius. From the sleek AC Cobra to the roaring Shelby Mustangs, he left tire tracks that are still followed today. Despite health challenges, Shelby’s passion never idled. His creations with Ford and Dodge, like the Viper and GT500, proved that horsepower and humor go hand in hand. Shelby’s legacy lives on, revving engines and hearts alike.
Genuine Shelby GT500s are scarce and increasingly out of reach for most enthusiasts, which is exactly why tribute builds like this 1968 Mustang Fastback exist. A period-correct 390 V8, Shelby styling kit, and a long list of modern upgrades bring the GT500 experience within reach without the numbers-matching price tag. Watch to see just how far the details go.
Coy Harvey wasn’t hunting for classic cars when he opened that garage door in Lubbock, Texas — he was just doing his pest control route. Buried under garden tools, storage baskets and years of forgotten Christmas ornaments sat a genuine 1966 Shelby GT350, and his restoration background told him immediately exactly what he’d found. Watch the full story of an accidental discovery most enthusiasts only dream about.
One phone call in 1966, about a yellow Charger sitting on a used car lot in Shelby, North Carolina, set off a story that kept the car in one family for 40 years, 20 of them spent parked on a lift. It was the Charger’s very first model year, introduced with rotating hidden headlights unseen on a Chrysler product since the early 1940s. Here’s the rest of Steve McCraw’s story, and what made 1966 Chargers so distinctive.
The AC Cobra Mark III is the car that put the ‘zoom’ in ‘vroom’ and made Corvettes cry. Born from a British roadster, it was beefed up in Los Angeles with a Ford engine, transforming into a racing beast. Detroit Ford worked with Shelby to craft the Mark III, boasting a 427 engine that could hit 185 mph on race tracks and leave a trail of awestruck spectators. The British government even imposed speed limits after one Cobra hit 186 mph on the M1! Talk about leaving a mark—or a skid mark, in this case.
A modified Shelby GT500 with a stick shift and roughly 650 horsepower lines up against a Dodge Charger Hellcat that never left the factory floor at 707. On paper the Hellcat should win outright — but a manual transmission adds a variable no spec sheet can capture. Ford versus Dodge has been a fight since 1969, and this round of it is no less contested. Watch to see which side of the aisle gets bragging rights this time.
This 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback started life as a real, Marti Report-documented S-code GT with a factory 390 — then got rebuilt from the ground up into a full Shelby GT500 tribute, inside and out. A Tremec 5-speed, 9-inch rear with Traction Lok, subframe connectors, and a Flowmaster exhaust suggest this one was built to be driven hard, not just shown. Fast Lane Classic Cars put it through a full test drive to prove exactly that.
Classic Recreations is revving up the muscle car scene with a modern twist, dropping EcoBoost engines into their iconic Shelby Mustangs. These continuation cars, fully licensed by Shelby, combine vintage vibes with turbocharged tech, making them the perfect ride for those who want to save on gas without sacrificing the classic roar. It’s like giving a 60s rock band a digital remix—old-school cool meets new-age efficiency! Now you can cruise with a conscience and a turbocharged grin.
For its 50th anniversary in 2017, Shelby American didn’t throw a retrospective – it built the most powerful Super Snake the company had ever sold to the public, with an optional supercharger pushing past 750 horsepower. Here’s what separates the base and optional power packages, what the hardware underneath had to do to handle it, and how a limited 500-unit run turned a legendary one-off into something you could actually order.
A supercharged Camaro ZL1, a Hellcat, a Shelby GT500, a Scat Pack, and a naturally aspirated Mustang GT lining up for a straight-line shootout is about as good as modern muscle gets. The forced-induction cars post the eye-catching times, with the ZL1 dipping into the 9s and the Hellcat and GT500 not far behind. But the Scat Pack and the Mustang GT, both running without a supercharger, close the gap by more than the horsepower numbers say they should. That’s the real story here.
Ford never offered a 460-cubic-inch V8 in a 1967 Mustang, the largest factory option that year topped out at 390 cubic inches. This resto-mod fastback drops a 7.5-liter big block into a shell wearing Bullitt and Eleanor-inspired styling cues, a swap that demands reworked front springs and typically a 9-inch rear axle to survive the torque. The result is a sound the factory engine could never produce.
Shelby’s 2017 Super Snake Widebody was the company’s first all-new concept in more than a decade — and its first wide-body take on the sixth-generation Mustang. A 750-hp Whipple-supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 and inches of added track width signaled a shift toward cornering grip rather than pure straight-line speed. Hand-built fenders, carbon fiber spoilers, and Brembo brakes rounded out a package built to prove Shelby could do more than drag strips.