There's horsepower, and then there's dyno-tested, can't-lie-to-your-friends horsepower. If you want to know how much power a car really makes, you've got to strap it to a dyno and spin it to redline. The guys over at 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords are always eager to find the true horsepower of a car, and so when they took delivery of a GT500KR to review they headed straight to the dyno to see how much power the supercharged V8 is putting out. What they found was somewhat surprising -- the KR produced 509 horsepower and 467.7 lb.-ft. torque to the wheels. Adjusting for an estimated driveline loss of 15 percent, the actual output at the flywheel is 589.82 hp and 550.24 lb-ft torque -- nearly 50 more horsepower and 40 more lb-ft than Ford is claiming. Take that Z06!
When Ford announced the GT500KR's based price of $79,995, many of you thought that it was pretty steep for a Mustang. Even though it's a limited edition Shelby with 540 horsepower, $80,000 can buy a lot of really nice cars. What's even more insane is that we know people will not only buy the KR, but they will pay tens of thousands of dollars over MSRP just to have one. The only question was how much dealers would try and gouge. That question has been answered. Lone Star Ford in Houston, TX has put up a red GT500KR on eBay Motors with a "Buy It Now" price of...$154,991.00. That's nearly double the MSRP. Who knows if anyone will actually buy it at that price, but going off what happened with the standard GT500, then it's quite possible.
Our initial drive of the Shelby GT500KR on public roads revealed that Ford, SVT and Shelby had addressed many of the issues that we had with the standard GT500. The KR's revised suspension is better balanced and more capable of handling the excessive amounts of horsepower and torque that the blown 5.4L generates, and a new short-throw Hurst shifter makes changing gears a joy instead of a chore. To top it all off, a Ford Racing cold air intake, new exhaust system, and 3.73 gears give the KR an extra kick in the pants. The changes were so spot-on that we wondered why Ford didn't build the GT500 this way in the first place.
With a ride like the GT500KR, however, only so much of the car can be experienced on public roads. At 540 horsepower and 510 lb-ft torque, the KR quickly reaches posted speed limits and the car stays well under its limits around corners. Fortunately, Ford let us loose to run hot laps around Miller Motorsports Park. Follow the jump to see how the "King of the Road" fared at the track.
