S650 Mustang Shelby GT500 Spied With New Tires, Brakes & Exhaust: Photos

Last week, Ford Authority brought you the very first photos of the upcoming Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 wearing production-intent body work. Today, our spies caught two more prototypes, this time with a different set of tires, brakes and a production-intent exhaust treatment compared to the one we showed you last week.

New Tires And Brakes

The prototype seen here is riding on a set of Michel Cup 2 R tires, whereas the one from last week was wearing a set of Pirelli P Zero R rubber. The size of the tires – 305/30ZR20 at the front and 315/30ZR20 at the rear – is the same across both prototypes, while also matching the tire size of the last-gen (S550) Shelby GT500.

The appearance of these two prototypes lets us safely conclude that we’re looking at a high-performance package, with the “base” car getting the Pirellis and the higher-specced cars getting the Michelins. It’s worth noting that the S550-gen GT500 offered a Carbon Fiber Track Package that included the Cup 2 R tires wrapping a set of carbon fiber wheels.

Though the wheels seen on these integrated prototypes feature a striking design, they’re not made from carbon fiber. Even so, we’ve already spied other Mustang mules testing carbon fiber wheels with Cup 2 R tires sized exactly the same as these GT500 prototypes. Perhaps Ford is finalizing the development and/or design of a carbon fiber wheel, so it could very well be that it’s only a matter of time before a carbon fiber wheel shows up on an S650 GT500 tester.

These new GT500 prototypes are also wearing a massive set of cross-drilled rotors. While the prototypes captured last week were equipped with a set of massive rotors, they were not cross-drilled. The presence of a cross-drilled setup indicates that a more powerful braking system will be part of the high-performance package.

New Exhaust Finishers

These latest prototypes also feature a new, vertically-oriented quad exhaust tip configuration in the shape of a parallelogram. These represent a departure from the large, round tips found in the rest of the Mustang lineup, including the last-gen Shelby GT500.

Other Body Elements

The rest of the elements seen here, including the front fascia, spoiler, and fenders appear to be the same as on the Shelby GT500 prototype spied last week.

The fascia is particularly menacing, with two massive front intakes separated by the front bumper cover, along with a noticeable front splitter. These, combined with a set of wider front fenders, results in a mean-looking mug.

And though it’s covered in thick camo, we can see that the hood will have a noticeable bump to provide enough clearance for the engine hiding underneath. The big question here is whether it will have a hot air extractor, like the S550-generation Mustang.

Similar aggression can be seen at the rear, with a new bumper cover, an aero pack and flow-through rear spoiler with four mounting points square off the rear-end.

(A Legendary) Powertrain

Under the hood will be the upcoming Legend engine – a supercharged DOHC V8 that will be the logical successor of the 5.2L Predator used in the S550-gen Shelby GT500. Mated to a dual-clutch automatic gearbox, that engine cranked out 760 horsepower  and 623 pound-feet of torque.

Naming

As Ford Authority exclusively reported over a year ago, it’s unlikely that the S650-generation Mustang will use the Shelby name, as FoMoCo execs prefer to use Ford’s own names. What the name will end up being is currently unknown, but we wouldn’t bet on it using the Shelby brand that accompanied the last generation.