A New Ford Shelby GT500 Could Be On The Way
For much of recent Ford Mustang history, if you wanted the absolute best from the factory, youād buy the Shelby GT500. So far in the life of the S650 Mustang though, that hasnāt been available ā nor has any Shelby been made available directly from Ford. That could change soon, though.
Rumours of a new Ford Shelby GT500 for the 2026 model year have been reported following the leak of a United Auto Workers internal memo. According to Car and Driver, the memo was initially posted on the r/Mustang Reddit page, since deleted. It can now be found on the independent Mustang 7G forum though.
2022 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500
It was said to discuss an additional shift being added to the Niche assembly line at Fordās Dearborn Engine Plant, which largely wouldnāt be all that interesting. Until that memo went on to say āThis volume increase is for the 2026 Mustang Shelby GT500. I canāt wait until we start building engines for such an iconic vehicle with an engine that will be named Legend.ā
Thatās about as much information as we have for the moment, so we can only speculate as to the kind of performance numbers the S650 GT500 could have available.
2022 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, front
The S550-based GT500 used a Predator 5.2-litre supercharged V8 pushing out 760bhp, at the time making it the most powerful factory Mustang. Itād be easy to say āthat, and then someā for the new one, but the existence of the 804bhp GTD casts a little doubt over that.
Thereās a fair argument that Ford wouldnāt want to overshadow the GT3-derived, Ā£300k+ special, although even with more power, a GT500 would be very unlikely to eclipse the GTD in any performance metric given how bespoke it is. Weāll sit on the fence somewhere between the old GT500, and under the GTD.
Ford Mustang GTD
Ford has refused to comment on the memo to various publications, so any further details will have to wait until the GT500 is officially confirmed. Or for more memos to leak.
