2017 Ford Shelby GT350 Review

It's a bit misleading to call the 2017 Ford Shelby GT350 a Mustang. Sure, it's a Mustang, but it isn't the kind of Mustang you'll rent in Florida, then drive to Miami Beach with the top down. The GT350 is a street car that has been given the heart of a racecar. And thanks to a fantastically well-tuned suspension, the GT350 is more than just a fast 0-60 Mustang, too. Now, if you were to call the GT350 the ultimate version of a Mustang, that would be more appropriate.

So what makes the GT350 so good? For starters, the flat-plane crank V8. It's a 5.2-liter power plant that's based on the standard Mustang GT engine but with much morevoodoo technology involved. It revs to an astonishing 8,200 rpm and makes all sorts of fantastic noises along the way. The GT350 also gets extra coolers for the oil, differential and transmission, along with unique intake and exhaust manifolds to accommodate the high-revving motor. All of that combines to create a screaming, 526-hp monster built to entertain and dominate on the track, yet it's perfectly docile and drivable in city traffic.

When you start looking at what holds the GT350 together underneath, things are just as interesting. When Ford redesigned the Mustang for 2015, the overhaul included a stiffer chassis and independent rear suspension, which carried over to the GT350 as well. But just as it is in the engine department, the GT350 gets much more than just the standard Mustang suspension. Instead, it comes with adaptive (magnetorheological) dampers, big Brembo brakes and a lowered, racecar-appropriate ride height. And even with all the bonkers-track-day-equipment, the GT350 remains an incredibly approachable car that you can drive quickly with relative ease.

This ability to haul donkey at the racetrack and then drive home without the need for a trailer is the holy grail of sports car design. It's what Porsche has been doing right with the 911 the past 50-plus years. And with the GT350, you don't have to shell out 100-plus grand to get it. But there are alternatives. The 640-hp Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is on its way to dealers late in 2016 and it will directly compete with the GT350. A base Chevrolet Corvette is also in the same price range and offers fantastic road and track performance. And if you want to go even farther outside the box, think of cars like the Alfa Romeo 4C and BMW M2. For now, though, this "ultimate Mustang" GT350 is clearly a class leader and one of our favorite cars on the road. And it probably will be for a long time.

Standard safety equipment for the 2017 Ford Shelby GT350 includes traction and stability control, front-seat side airbags, front knee airbags and side curtain airbags. Also standard are emergency assistance, a post-crash alert system (SOS), a rearview camera andMyKey, which can set certain driving parameters for different drivers like valets or your kids.

During a simulated panic stop in Edmunds testing, the GT350 came to a stop from 60 mph in an extremely short distance of 101 feet.

While the Shelby GT350 has not been specifically crash tested, the government has tested a regular Mustang coupe. It earned a five-star rating (out of a possible five) for overall crash protection, with five stars for total front-impact protection and five stars for total side-impact protection. The independent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave the Mustang coupe its top rating of "Good" in the moderate-overlap front-impact, side impact and roof strength crash tests. The Mustang's seat and head restraint design were rated "Good" for whiplash protection in rear impacts. In the small-overlap frontal-offset crash test, the standard Mustang received the IIHS's second best rating of "Average."