Back in April, one of Carscoops readers took some shots of a heavily camouflaged Ford Mustang prototype with flush wheel covers (?) standing in traffic, and now, our spies nabbed a couple of similar, if not identical, testers driving around the Santa Monica Pier in California, and which we believe to be the next high performance version of the Blue Oval’s pony car.
There are many rumors regarding the name, with some saying it will wear the SVT moniker, and others the Shelby GT350 or GT500 badge – we’ll stick with the Shelby GT500 for now and until we hear something more concrete.
The testers featured a hood vent hidden beneath the mesh cover on the hood, fat Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires, quad-tips enclosed in the rear diffuser and possibly, added vents behind the front wheels.
Our spies told us that they caught a glimpse of the instrument panel and saw the tachometer with a 6,500 rpm redline and a 7,000 rpm over-rev region, just like the current Mustang GT500 that sports supercharged 5.8-liter V8 with 662 ponies and 631 lb-ft of torque. Even if the top Mustang keeps the same engine, it will still likely top the +600hp 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and the 580hp Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.
In the interior pictures, we noticed the manual gearbox and the body-hugging sport seats with fixed headrests.
We’ll probably have to wait at least another year for the introduction of the new top dog in the 6th generation Mustang’s lineup.
By John Halas
Photo Credits: CarPix for CarScoopS
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