The horsepower wars rage on. The latest nugget of information comes from Ford Authority, which reported Friday that the 2020 Shelby Mustang GT500 may make 720 horsepower.
To start, that’s 70 hp more than the most powerful Chevrolet Camaro in the portfolio, the 2018 Camaro ZL1, with 650 hp. The rumored power output comes from an unverified document posted to the Mustang6G forum and also says to expect 650 pound-feet of torque (matching the Camaro ZL1) from a 5.2-liter version of the DOHC Coyote V8 engine.
Lastly, the 2020 Shelby GT500 is rumored to tip the scales at 4,225 pounds, which is quite a bit heftier than the 3,883-pound Camaro ZL1. However, the extra (rumored) power from the GT500 would actually give it a more favorable power-to-weight ratio than the Camaro.
Thus far, the Camaro team has remained silent on whether we’ll see another variant that ups the ante in the pony car war. Dodge has since circled both the Camaro and Mustang with its Hellcat and Demon models producing over 700 horsepower for years. We should see more of the Shelby GT500 in the coming months as it prepares for an early 2019 debut.
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Not much to worry about here right now, this Mustang still needs to match up to the Camaro Hennessy Exorcist ZL-1 which has an output of 1,000 HP.
That’s a 3rd party build. Nice try.
Me thinks Ford blurs the lines with Shelby on these vehicles. They are working in tandem with an aftermarket company to produce these cars and have for a number of years (if it’s a GT350 or GT500 Shelby is involved on some level). I believe Ford “designs and builds” the Shelby Mustangs, but I’m pretty sure Shelby does most of the performance legwork and gets the money from licensing with Ford. The only thing Hennessy lacks is a similar relationship with GM.
SVT, the performance division of Ford, creates and builds these vehicles (GT500, Raptor, etc).
Shelby American is a separate entity that builds The Super Snake, et. al.
One IS a division of Ford. The other is a 3rd party that modifies Fords.
Individuals that “down-vote” facts, crack me up.
Even though the 720 HP 650 TQ number might be legit I don’t take that document as legit. There were many typos in it and and I don’t believe that this car that’s been under development for 3-4 years can weigh over 4,000 lbs.
Indications are there will be two versions one R one regular and I think neither will be over 3800 lbs. this car will be a monster but I don’t see it as a defeat for the ZL1 that car has been on the market for 2 years and I’m sure the Camaro team is far along in development on a even higher model but will it be a 6 gen or 7 gen?
Power is only one parameter. The real test is can you get it to the ground and just what you can do with is.
Lets see the lap times and how refined the laps are to judge.
With the C8 coming I expect there may be some available ZR engines that may need a home.
I could legitimately see this 2020 GT500 over 4,300lbs if they deploy some kind of hybrid ICE/electric car. The extra weight would be motors and batteries.
Although an inline e-motor boost along the lines of the McLaren P1 makes more sense than independently putting motors at both of the rear wheels (RWD) or one on each corner (AWD).
Chevrolet doesn’t need to sweat given that they already have the 755 horsepower LT5 6.2L supercharged V8 which is currently being used by the C7 Corvette ZR1; it shouldn’t take very much effort to shoehorn the LT5 into the Camaro ZL1 and be ready to go head-to-head with the 2020 Mustang.
I like how “…it shouldn’t take very much effort…” just rolls off the tongue on a blog site.
Put the LT5 in the ZL1 and the LT4 650hp in the SS.
Yea, but that chevrolet junk will fall apart after you own it for a year, corvettes especially, the gt500 will smoke that bowtie junk.