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Photo: lsdesignsrl / Instagram
The Ford Motor Company strives to go upscale with its model lineup and brand image, and things like the upcoming Ford Hypercar for Le Mans, the Formula 1 presence, or the brand-new Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC Convertible keep boosting the strategy.
Ford aims for a winning bit at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, all over again, this time around not with the Mustang GT3 but with a proper LMDh racer for the 2027 WEC season, a veritable hypercar sporting a new hybrid 5.4-liter V8. That’s a massive boost for the brand image. They also skipped the Monterey Car Week in order to focus on the Woodward Dream Cruise at home in Detroit, where they presented the open-top Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC.
Quite obviously, the convertible is the same high-performance sports car with the top down and features a soft top along with the same supercharged 5.2-liter V8 shared with the Ford F-150 Raptor R, the Mustang GTD, as well as the Dark Horse SC coupe, complete with 795 horsepower and 660 lb-ft of torque on tap. Basically, they’re wholeheartedly telling everyone that GM and Stellantis have nothing on Ford since there’s no Camaro and the Charger still doesn’t have a V8 under the hood.
But the Ford Motor Company can’t remain idle until General Motors puts the Chevrolet Camaro back on the market based on the upcoming Cadillac CT5, as per the latest rumors, and Stellantis finally gifts the Charger with a new Hemi V8 version rocking the 777-hp 6.2-liter supercharged V8 from the Ram 1500 TRX SRT and the Rumble Bee SRT.
Naturally, all the commotion around the Blue Oval has attracted a lot of attention, including from the members of the imaginative guild of digital car content creators dwelling across the parallel universes of vehicular CGI. For example, Luca Serafini, a virtual automotive designer based in Modena, Italy (aka ‘lsdesignsrl‘ on social media), imagined an unofficial, hypothetical S650 Ford Mustang design project a while ago.
The virtual artist seeks to bring back the Shelby GT500 moniker in conjunction with the S650 seventh-generation Ford Mustang and has found a way to do it. So, just in time for a potential mid-cycle refresh procedure sometime around the 2028 model year, the Mustang could also get back a Shelby GT500 model. However, in order to refrain from trespassing across Dark Horse SC and Mustang GTD territory, the new version comes with the classic dual racing stripes but also a distinctive grand tourer flavor.
As such, along with a refreshed look, it could also open up a new premium chapter in Ford Mustang’s legacy, showcasing the grand tourer credentials from the Shelby GT500 moniker instead of the racing-focused ethos. Thus, while the Dark Horse SC and Mustang GTD would be the race weekend and track-day focused models, the Shelby GT500 could become a new luxury-oriented tier. What do you think – yay or nay?