2008 Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang

Road & Track - By Jim Hall

Ford Shelby GT500

The Ford Mustang and Carroll Shelby. This tie-up should be a case study at Harvard Business School as it certainly demonstrates synergistic success in the automotive industry: Take one of America's most beloved cars, team it up with one of the country's most popular racing legends, and produce a whale of a muscle car with a surprisingly down-to-earth price tag — $54,299 for the coupe, $58,399 for the convertible.

The supercharged 5.4-litre (330 cubic inches) 32-valve V-8 packs quite a punch — a whopping 500 horsepower at 6000 rpm and a tarmac-shredding 480 lb.-ft. of torque at 4500 rpm — and features fortified componentry to handle the load, including a forged steel crankshaft, forged aluminum pistons, an iron engine block and aluminum heads. All of this power is routed through the rear wheels via a very stout Tremec 6-speed manual transmission that shifts fluidly. But the clutch pedal operation, not surprisingly, is a touch on the heavy side.

This modified Mustang's test numbers are mighty impressive. It rockets from zero to 100 km/h in a mere 4.5 seconds and hits the quarter-mile marker in nearly 13 seconds flat at 177 km/h. Moving from the drag strip to the road course is equally impressive, thanks to a firm but not too stiff suspension that corners with little body roll, very good steering feel and large Brembo brakes that are more than up to the task of slowing down this eye- catching American sports-car icon in short order.

With the ongoing battle with Chevrolet's Corvette — and a new generation of pony car wars on the horizon with the rebirth of the Chevy Camaro and the Dodge Challenger, not to mention a next-generation Mustang due as early as later next year — auto enthusiasts who missed out on the original muscle-car era of the '60s and early '70s will get a second chance to relive the "good old days." Bring it on!