From Drag Strip to Road Course: The Drivetrain Tech of the 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500
In recent weeks, much of the conversation about American performance cars has been dominated by the 2020 C8 Corvette and all of the new tricks that come with it. But not to be left out is Ford, who has just dropped some more information on the 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500, particularly focusing on its drivetrain and performance technology.
We already know that the GT500’s 5.2 liter supercharged V8 makes 760 horsepower and 625 pound feet of torque—enough to earn it the title of most powerful street legal Ford ever built. But equally impressive is the all new gearbox it’s mated to.
While the naturally aspirated Shelby GT350 has only been available with a six-speed manual transmission, the more powerful GT500 is only available with a seven-speed dual clutch automatic gearbox that was co-developed with Tremec.
Known as the Tremec TR-9070, Ford says the new transmission has been finally tuned to deliver maximum performance in both straight line acceleration and in demanding road racing applications where constant up and down gear changes are needed.
Modern automatics are capable of shifting far faster than a manual gearbox can dream of and the GT500’s DCT is no exception. Ford says that when the car is in sport mode, gear changes can happen in just 80 milliseconds.
Sport mode will be one five settings drivers can opt for, with other modes geared toward different situations including normal everyday driving and a drag mode which provides extra torque in between upshifts not unlike the old school method of powershifting.
Track mode meanwhile will utilize G-force sensors to anticipate which direction the car is moving and unlike the rip-shifting drag mode, track mode is designed to minimize driveline disturbances in cornering situations.
Needless to say, there is a lot of anticipation about the GT500’s real world performance figures, and Ford has also slipped in the fact that the 2020 GT500 will be capable of going from zero to one hundred miles per hour and back to zero again in just 10.6 seconds.
And while the C8 Corvette Stingray and top of the line Mustang may not be direct competitors we are certainly anticipating the inevitable comparisons between the two cars as they’ll both fall into similar pricing neighborhoods when they go on sale later this year. Fun times indeed.
Want to nerd out some more? Check out our look at the tech of the C8 Corvette.
