When Ford decided to revive the classic look of the early Mustangs in their current-generation ponycar, they had to know that they were doing something right. In the midst of the revival of the classic musclecar hobby, Ford stepped quietly to the podium, cleared its collective throat, and looked around for the competition it knew wasn’t there. Thirsty for something exciting, excited crowds at autoshows everywhere waited breathlessly for the sheet to be pulled off of the sultry shape on the stage. Ford smiled knowingly and said simply, “Here you go.” Since then, Mustangs are some of the most affordable, most sought after, and thankfully, some of the most beautiful cars to roll off an assembly line in a long time.
The current craze of looking to heritage styling cues for inspiration for current model years is possibly the best thing to happen to the automotive world. After the drudgery of the 80’s, it’s nice to finally see that Detroit is realizing where it went wrong. Americans still love musclecars, and we’ll still buy them.
This year, Mustang enthusiasts will have two more reasons to save up their down payments in the forthcoming Saleen Heritage Edition Mustang, and the awe-inspiring Shelby GT500KR or Super Snake. With nothing less than five hundred horsepower on tap, these aren’t the economy Mustangs, but they’re the ones that everyone wants.
At $50,000, the Shelby GT500KR is the least expensive of the bunch, but boasts 540 horsepower with a factory-installed supercharger, and this year celebrates the 40th anniversary of the original Shelby GT500KR, introduced in 1968 to speed-hungry fans around the world. This year, Ford has sourced Shelby to create what is known as the “Super Snake,” a 600 horsepower beast of a Mustang to be built in limited numbers.
Steve Saleen, long known as a producer of some of the most beautiful and powerful Mustangs ever, is offering its own Supercar in the form of its’ 620-horse S302E heritage edition Mustang. Off the showroom floor, this Mustang will fly past sixty miles per hour in four seconds, and run quarter-mile times in the 12’s without breaking a sweat. At a reported eighty thousand dollars, this Mustang isn’t for the light hearted, or the light walleted, but chances are you won’t see one outside of car shows anyway. Saleen is reporting that only one hundred examples of this Mustang will be created yearly, and they’re already taking pre-orders. If you’ve got the cash, get your order in quick, because like the rest of these super Mustangs, they’re guaranteed to go quick.
