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

Nine tuned Mustangs went head to head in one sound compilation, and Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s own 7.1-liter RTR wasn’t the loudest one there. A built 850-horsepower Shelby GT500 SVT stole that title instead, with a widebody Alphamale build and a bone-stock Bullitt rounding things out. Turn your volume up before you press play.

Nine modified Mustangs line up back to back in one video, and the car everyone expects to steal the show isn’t the one that does. Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s RTR rolls through first, built around a monstrous 7.1-liter V8 the professional drifter has used to shred tires for a living — the kind of bass-heavy roar that should end any argument about which Mustang hits hardest. Then a built 850-horsepower Ford Shelby GT500 SVT cracks the throttle, and the whole comparison flips on its head. Throw in a widebody Alphamale Alpha ONE, a Royal Crimson GT Performance build, and a bone-stock Bullitt for contrast, and you get a rare side-by-side of just how differently the same platform can sound depending on who built it. It’s the kind of reel that settles nothing and proves everything about why Mustang people can never agree on a favorite.

What’s Actually in This Sound Reel

The compilation comes from Gumbal, a channel that spends its time camped out at car meets filming exactly this kind of thing: modified Mustangs, engines revving, exhaust notes doing the talking. The lineup here spans nearly the entire modern Mustang catalog — a 5.0-liter V8 Royal Crimson GT Performance build, the widebody Alphamale Alpha ONE Ford Mustang GT, a 2021 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s RTR running that 7.1-liter V8, the built 850-hp Shelby GT500 SVT, a stock Mustang GT, a Bullitt, an RTR Spec 5 widebody, and even a 2.3-liter EcoBoost thrown in for good measure.

That range is the point. A stock EcoBoost four-cylinder and a hand-built 850-horsepower supercharged V8 have almost nothing in common under the hood, yet they both wear the same pony badge. Lining them up back to back turns what could’ve been a random highlight reel into something closer to a listening test — naturally aspirated versus supercharged versus turbocharged, widebody versus stock, drift-built versus street-tuned, all filmed on the same pavement within seconds of each other.

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The Mustang’s Long History of Wearing Many Hats

Part of why a lineup like this works is that the Mustang has never been just one car. Since Ford launched it in 1964, the nameplate has stretched from budget commuter to Boss 302 track weapon to the supercharged Shelby GT500 without ever losing the same basic recipe: long hood, short deck, rear-wheel drive, V8 optional. The Shelby GT500 name specifically traces back to Carroll Shelby’s partnership with Ford in the 1960s, revived in the 2000s under Ford’s SVT (Special Vehicle Team) banner with supercharged V8s pushing well past factory Mustang GT output, and revived again for the modern era with a factory-supercharged 5.2-liter Predator V8. An 850-horsepower example, like the one in this video, is well beyond anything Ford shipped from the factory — which means someone built it that way on purpose.

Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s RTR brand adds another layer to the story. Gittin founded RTR Vehicles in 2009 after building a reputation as one of Formula Drift’s most recognizable names, and the company has spent over a decade turning that drift pedigree into street-legal (and track-ready) Mustang packages, from suspension and aero kits up to the kind of big-displacement V8 swaps that make a 7.1-liter Mustang possible in the first place. When his own build shows up in a lineup like this and still gets outdone on sound by a Shelby, that’s a genuine surprise even for people who follow the Mustang tuning scene closely.

Why the Sound Says More Than the Spec Sheet

Horsepower numbers only tell part of the story — what makes a compilation like this addictive is that sound reveals engineering choices a spec sheet hides. A supercharged V8 has that distinctive whine layered under the exhaust note. A big-inch naturally aspirated build, like Gittin’s 7.1-liter, tends to hit with a deeper, more mechanical rumble. A turbocharged EcoBoost four-cylinder, meanwhile, sounds almost nothing like a muscle car at all — which is exactly why it’s worth including here, as a reminder of how far the Mustang badge now stretches. For fans who grew up thinking “Mustang” meant one specific sound, watching nine different interpretations roll through back to back is the real education. If you want to go even deeper on the model that started it all, our full history of the 1969 Mustang Mach 1 barn-find restoration is a good next stop.

Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.