2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Weighs 223 Pounds Less Than Challenger Hellcat, Leak Claims
Documents said to be from the Ford dealers’ computer network put the GT500 at 4,225 pounds, which may be porky, but it’s still lighter than its rival.
Official weight figures for the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 have allegedly circulated through Ford's dealership network and reached the internet for all to see.
A user of Ford owners' forum Mustang 6G posted the following image, outlining the 2020 GT500's weight and its distribution, claiming to have received it from a Ford dealer. It outlines Ford's ultimate pony car as weighing 4,225 pounds at the curb and featuring an approximately 56-44 weight distribution front-to-rear.
When The Drive contacted Ford to verify these specifications' accuracy, a spokesperson declined to comment, citing company policy against discussing future products.
Even before the GT500's engine specs were confirmed to be 760 horsepower and 625 pound-feet of torque, and the above weight figures allegedly leaked, the model's position atop the Mustang lineup has invited comparisons to the most powerful family of muscle cars on the market: Dodge's Challenger SRT Hellcat. Now that we have what appears to be a legitimate (and believable) curb weight for the GT500, we can identify the GT500's closest, most likely competitor among the Hellcat lineup.
Base Hellcats feature 707 horsepower and weigh 4,448 pounds, giving them a power-to-weight ratio of 318 horsepower per ton. As the GT500 has 53 more horsepower and reportedly weighs 223 pounds less, it towers over the Hellcat with 360 horsepower per ton. Closer to the GT500's level is the Hellcat Redeye, which vaults up to 797 horsepower with no consequential increase in weight, and attains a horsepower-per-ton rating of 358. With their power-to-weight ratios so close, we must look to other decisive factors that could tell us which'll be faster in a straight line.
That answer could be found in the two cars' respective torque outputs. Though the Dodge weighs more, it has proportionally more torque for its weight, at 707 pound-feet to the GT500's 625. Additionally, while the Ford has a quick-shifting, dual-clutch seven-speed, the Dodge features an eight-speed, giving it more ratios with which to play.
Ford has boasted vaguely of the GT500 being able to accelerate from a standstill to 60 in the mid-three-second range, and complete a quarter-mile in under 11 seconds. Dodge, of course, is more specific and claims zero-to-60 in 3.4 seconds and a quarter-mile in 10.8 seconds.
If anything, it looks like the Redeye may have the base GT500 just barely beaten in a straight line, but there'll be no settling this argument until we see what the spec'd-up, carbon-laden GT500s can do. Ford's Carbon Fiber Track Pack will change the GT500's wheels to carbon fiber and eliminate the rear seats, chopping a consequential amount of both sprung and unsprung mass. Losing weight over the rear axle could hurt the GT500's quarter-mile times, or, for all we know, help them.
There'll be no way to know until a Redeye and a Track Pack-equipped GT500 meet on the drag strip someday in the future, which they inevitably will.
h/t: Motor1
