Few names in the muscle car game inspire as much reverence as Shelby American. The company, best identified by its iconic Cobra logo, was founded by legendary car designer Carroll Shelby in 1962 with the singular goal of engineering the fastest cars on the road. The company’s early successes were well-documented in the 2019 film “Ford v Ferrari,” as was the beginning of Shelby American’s longtime partnership with Ford Motor Company.
Though Ford’s Le Mans-winning GT40 was the primary star of the early Ford partnership, by the mid-1960s, the manufacturer had tasked Shelby American with similarly souping up their celebrated Mustang. Though Shelby Mustangs were a hit with muscle car lovers, the company was mostly out of the Mustang game for the 1980s and 1990s. They re-teamed with Ford in 2005, and Shelby American has arguably been redefining the term “muscle car” with their souped-up Mustangs ever since.
The 2024 version of the Shelby Super Snake Ford Mustang is no exception. Based on the S650 model Mustang, the new Super Snake easily ranks among the most powerful Shelby Stangs, offering a level of horsepower typically reserved for the F1 set. There isn’t a single answer to how much horsepower a 2024 Shelby Super Snake can generate, as two different engine builds are available. One of those options, however, will top out at more than 800 hp.
Both 2024 Shelby Super Snake versions have serious horsepower
The goal with the 2024 Super Snake Mustang was to outdo even past Shelbys on the design and power front, with current Shelby American CEO Joe Conway telling Car and Driver, “We designed the Shelby Super Snake to be the pinnacle of our performance cars based on Ford’s world-class Mustang sports car.” It seems that those lofty goals were met, and then some.
According to Car and Driver, both versions of the ’24 model are based on Mustang’s Coyote 5.0-liter V-8 engine and feature significant upgrades and re-designs in the typical Super Snake fashion, with each alteration geared toward improving the vehicle’s power and handling. But since we’re here to talk horsepower, we’ll tell you that the standard version of the ’24 Super Snake will push the typical 480 horsepower fans of the S650 Mustang have come to expect. As for the upgraded version, the custom-tuned engine comes outfitted with a 3.0 liter Whipple supercharger that ups the ponies to a staggering 830 hp.
That incredible output basically puts any ’24 Super Snake driver behind the wheel of a world-class race car. For speed-loving gearheads, horsepower like that should make the new Shelby a muscle car dream come true.
How much will a 2024 Shelby Super Snake Mustang cost?
Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, we don’t know how much a ’24 Super Snake will cost because Ford has not made the price of the vehicle — which will not be available for purchase until sometime later this summer — public. You can, however, be sure that the vehicle’s price will reflect the highly specialized upgrades undertaken by Shelby. The car’s price will likely also reflect the general scarcity of the ’24 Shelby Super Snake Mustang, with Car and Driver claiming that only 250 will be manufactured this year, making it one of the rarer Shelby-fied Mustangs produced to date.
Despite the radio silence concerning the price of the ’24 Shelby Super Snake Mustang, we can field a ballpark guess simply by looking at what Ford charged for the 2023 model. According to MotorTrend, the base price for the ’23 model came at a whopping $140,220 and could run as much as $170,000 depending on the selected accessory package. Even at that lofty cost, there’s little reason to think Ford won’t move all 250 ’24 Super Snake Mustangs. So, if you want one, you might need to get in line ASAP.
