The new Shelby GT-H is not only one of the world’s most desirable cars, it’s also one of the rarest. Not rare in the Pagani Zonda F sense of the word (i.e. only the five wealthiest Kings of Europe can afford one). Rare because Ford’s limited total production to six hundred units, Hertz gets all of them, and at LAX at least, the GT-H is booked through October. Thanks to a manufacturer-sponsored press event (disclaimer done) your intrepid TTAC reviewer managed to get his mitts on the “Hertz rent-a-racer.” I don’t think I’m giving anything away to say that pistonheads’ wives can consider their husbands’ birthday present sorted.
To create the GT-H, Ford once again asked legendary Texas tuner Carroll Shelby to raid the company’s "Go-Fast" parts bin. Yes, for the second time in forty-odd years, FoMoCo, Shelby and Hertz have cornered the weekend warrior rental car market. Predictably enough, Shelby Automobiles’ president Amy Boylan claims the GT-H “looks, accelerates, handles and sounds the way a high-performance Shelby-ized Ford Mustang should.” For once the hype doesn’t go far enough; this is the Mustang GT Ford should have built.
The GT-H is, as the Brits say, the dog’s bollocks. By lowering the car an inch and a half, the base Mustang’s good points– the long hood, the aggressive stance– are brought into sharp focus. Unlike Shelby’s famous white-with-blue-stripes combo, the GT-H’s deep-black with gleaming gold Le Mans stripes looks distinctly menacing. Even non-believers will be wooed by the nipple rings holding the hood down, the shiny aluminum grill with its off-center running horse, trick side scoops and big chrome Hertz badges. The view over the hood is sweeter than syrup; the GT-H’s power dome looks the business. Pull the sparkling pins, pop the hood and the dolled-up engine shows its pride with a bevy of Ford Racing stickers and some seriously sparkling plumbing.
Inside, the badge party continues with a big “Hertz Shelby GT-H” plate mounted on the sill. There’s even a numbered plaque between the air vents with Carroll’s signature– should you forget that you didn’t rent the painfully slow V6 model. The rest of the interior is sadly identical to the regular GT, though there is a big, ugly Sirius control unit glued behind the gear selector. The good news is that the “pick a color, any color” mood lighting is still available for when the sun goes down.
Never mind the interior; check out that burble. Thanks to Ford Racing parts– a muffler pack, an X-pipe like the one used on the even more powerful GT500 and a cat-back exhaust– the GT-H’s soundtrack at idle is a trip back to the days when dinosaurs gargled gas with glorious abandon. Crack the go-pedal and the GT-H’s roar is Slayer to the stock GT’s Dishwala. Take it to redline and you get the feeling you’re sitting inside an explosion. Ford GT Marketing Manager John Alguire told the junketed throngs that FoMoCo’s engineers spent plenty of time and money tuning the Hertz model’s exhaust-note. Good work boys, now go play with all the other models.
Not for nothing is all that noise. A new cold-air intake and some ECU chipping combine with the breathing bits to bang out 325 hp and 330 foot pounds of twist. That’s up 25 and 10 over the standard GT mill, respectively. It’s not a mammoth increase in oomph, but it’s enough to overcome the “yeah, but…” feeling GT drivers experience during full-on stoplight sprints. While you can only rent the GT-H with a 5-speed slushbox, it has most of the grunt most of the people need most of the time. Otherwise, aside from the holdover not ready for primetime brakes from the regular GT, you can’t switch off the traction control. It’s a real tease, too; the button’s there, but you can’t push it. Only weekend track day warriors determined not to win would rent the Hertz Racer.
Which is a shame. The GT-H handles much, much better than all the other Mustangs, including Shelby’s own GT500. Lowered springs, tuned-dampers, fatter sway bars and the prettiest strut tower brace ever installed on a production vehicle nimble-up a chassis that is usually hoggish. Even with the babysitter forever on, there’s enough grunt and oversteer to initiate tremendously satisfying, deductible-threatening power slides. At low speeds, too. The steering feels much faster, firmer and accurate and the ride is pleasantly, sportingly harsh. Hey, you’re only going to have the car a few days, right?
I also drove the pre-production Shelby GT, which is essentially the GT-H but with silver stripes, a five-speed Hurst shifter and bigger 18" wheels. Will this harder-core sister model decrease the GT-H's desirability or rareness? Not one iota. No matter who you are, you can't buy the rental model. Sometimes the truth Hertz.
Any idea what the rental rate is?
$99 a day + $1 a mile.
Well worth it.
Speeding Tickets not included.
It’s about time.
I only wonder what the next model of mustang is going to look like. They can’t keep making 1968 clones forever, or can they?
In the picture at the top of the article, it appears that the new car is in the foreground; however, the cars are actually side by side. The new one is just that friggin huge. ;-)
Is the rental thing some kind of marketing ploy to bring publicity to the more mundane Mustang or GT? I guess I don’t get it. Why sell only to a rental company when there are lots of folks out there ready to lay down cash on this thing?
BTW, I saw one of these on the way to work last week and it was stunning. I’m normally not a “car guy” but this one was sweet. The one I saw was a deep royal blue, all I can say is the pictures don’t do it justice.
Good work boys, now go play with all the other models.
Amen to that! Send them over to Team Five Hundred’s camp.
I will definitely be renting this bad boy. I rented the v6 convertible recently and was able to turn off the tcm. Which led to a session of burnouts and donuts in a ‘less than populated’ area. I can understand why they would disable the button on this one, but I wonder if there is a way to hack the turn off, perhaps through a combo of key turns and brake presses (like on some other cars). Anyhow if I find out I will post it here…
Dolo — you don’t need it off.
I mean, you are not going to lay rubber, but hit your turns wide and late and that rear will slide.
You guys make a great case,for not buying recycled rental cars.
well just in case you DO want it off – I found this little nugget. “Out of the driveway, stop at the light, push the traction control (TCS) button — nothing. Pull to the side of the road. About 20 seconds and a persuasive pocket knife later we’re holding the TCS button and the paper clip-looking mischief-deterrent that was lodged behind it. Reinstall. Push the button — TCS off. This pony is free of its saddle.” Thanks Edmonds!
you gotta watch the video in that link. oh man that is beautiful!
Curent C&D had a bit on that car… Some of their staff had bills of like $1100 – $1500 per car for 3 or so days of use. I think the rate varied by where your destination airport is… and you’ve gotta show a ticket to get one as a rental… and I think some hertz locations charge a say hello fee or some nonsense like that. It is safe to say that you can rack up an absurd tab if you go about it just right.
If the nanny was on in this video, she was sound asleep:
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/b8e1114f-9ba8-4048-bdee-982a016f6d42.htm
Wow… kind of suprising that Edmunds would let that cat out of the bag… not that it takes a genious to remove a jumper from a switch, but how many people will now rent a GT-H becasue they now know how to re-enable the traction control disable switch?
meh… probably not that many.
just to re-reitierate: even armed with that knowledge (dam it — too late!), the Traction Control really isn’t an issue.
They did a bang up job with the handling, so unlike the regular GT, the GT-H has no understeer at all — a pretty neat trick with a front-heavy car.
Just another way to part fools with their money. If you are going to blow a wad of cash on renting a high performance vehicle, do it right and rent a Viper. This is nothing more than, as Jonny said, what the Mustang GT should have been.
Hell, you can make your Mustang GT into this car if you are willing to part with a bit of cash. There is nothing in the car that you can not buy in the aftermarket.
Let me see if I get this straight. There is now a:
Mustang
Mustang GT
Shelby GT
Shelby GT-H
Shelby GT500
Is this right? Or by Shelby GT you mean GT500?
Dean,
All those, plus convertible version of a bunch of ’em, plus new iterations in the works.
I’m thinking a Shelby GT-R
Don’t forget about the GT/CS package and a Bullitt is coming next year.
Most of the large Ford Dealers offer the Ford Performance Packages as dealer installed options that can be financed with the car. So you could have all the performance of the Shelby GT-H for an additional $2,500+/- with a 5/60 warranty.
I like all the variations, it shows just how versatile and how much potential this platform has.
The sad part, though, is why the hell isn’t Ford doing anything remotely similar with the rest of their products?
I really can’t believe that the company who can generate this much excitement (you all should have seen the people milling about the parking lot foaming at the mouth over these cars) is the same company that’s going to lose $90,000,000,000,000,000 this quarter… Weird.
Now if we could just get women to stop buying Mustangs and chickifying the brand. (Uh… no offense to women.) Because face it guys, this has practically become a chick car now.
Uh… Kevin… that’s not true.
Worries about driving “chick car” = Nobody knows I have a small penis.
Granted the majority of Mustangs purchased are of the V6 automatic variety and of these a substantial portion will be driven by the fairer sex BUT the GT demographics sway much farther in the other direction. And if the number of females driving a vehicle determines whether or not it’s a chick vehicle then any and all SUVs would have to be labeled as such.
5 speed slushbox ?
only 25 extra hp from all those modifications?
meh, beats renting a Cobalt.
I just had a GT-H pass me yesterday on I-40 in Durham, NC. I almost got into a wreck because of it. I’m just cruising along in the Freestyle (GREAT vehicle by the way) on my way home from work…I notice some gold stripes in the rearview, then the hood pins register in the brain…and before you know it, it’s flown by me must of been at 95 or so (I was running 80). I almost crapped myself. One because I am currently building a scale model of the original GT-H, and two, because I was paying too much attention watching it weave in and out of traffic and started wandering lanes…
It really does look quite aggressive. The body mods have done something great to the car (the regular GT just looks so plain now) and the grill is fabulous…