Listen: the new Shelby GT500 sounds absolutely wild

Has Ford been playing a little too much Street Fighter II? It describes the Shelby GT500 as a “takedown artist”. What it really wants to do is hadouken your senses firmly into touch.

Or should that be a sonic boom? Well, judge for yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present, for your listening pleasure, the brand-new Shelby GT500 on a track. Prepare thine ears for reckoning.

In this footage released by Ford, you can listen to just how absolutely nuts the most powerful street-legal Blue Oval in history sounds. The source of this noise is a 700bhp 5.2-litre aluminium alloy V8 engine, built by hand, installed up front.

Attached very intimately to this engine is a whopping 2.65-litre roots-type supercharger with an air-to-liquid intercooler “tucked neatly into the V8 engine valley”. A V8 engine valley? Sounds like our kind of holiday destination.

Anyhoo, the engine itself features lightweighting and performance tech: the alloy block features wire-arc cylinder liners, high flow aluminium heads, forged rods, better lubrication and cooling.

There’s lots more sophistication about the rest of the GT500 – more of which you can read here – but right now you just need to listen to it. The messaging seems to be clear: attack it if you dare, it wants to crush you…