The Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is an absolute monster of a thing and as it turns out, many buyers are willing to pay a lot of money to make their GT500 special.
Like many other Mustang variants before it, the Shelby GT500 is available with racing stripes. Customers can choose to spend $1,000 to get a pair of vinyl stripes applied or they can cough up $10,000 for hand-painted stripes. While you may question just how popular these hand-painted stripes would be given their cost, a Ford spokesperson has revealed that approximately 17 per cent of GT500s purchased them.
Speaking with Car and Driver, the spokesperson added that during the 2021 model year, the hand-painted racing stripes outsold the $10,000 Carbon Fiber Handling Package that was available exclusively last year and sat between the $1,500 Handling Pack and $18,500 Carbon Fiber Track Pack.
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That’s quite a surprise as that package added a host of new performance-oriented features, including 20-inch black-painted carbon fiber wheels, adjustable strut top mounts, a catch can, a gurney flap, splitter wickers, and a wheel lock kit.
Models that are ordered with the hand-painted racing stripes are built at the same factory in Flat Rock, Michigan as all other GT500 models. Once they’ve left the assembly line, the stripes are painted as part of a partnership with Penske in a process that includes hand-prepping, painting, and clear-coating.
As a reminder, the Shelby GT500 is powered by a 5.2-liter supercharged V8 pumping out 760 hp and 625 lb-ft (847 Nm) of torque, all of which is sent to the rear wheels courtesy of a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. It can hit 60 mph (96 km/h) in a brisk 3.5 seconds and reach a 180 mph (290 km/h) top speed.
