You Can Now Buy Ford’s 526-HP Shelby GT350 For Honda Accord Money, If You Dare

Ford has made a lot of cool Mustangs over the past decade, but I think the Shelby GT350 might be the coolest. First revealed back in 2015, it was meant to be the hardcore track-day-goer’s Mustang, with bigger brakes, a tighter suspension, sticky tires, and, of course, a 526-horsepower naturally aspirated V8 engine under the hood.

That engine, known as the “Voodoo,” immediately inserted itself into legend thanks to its flat-plane crankshaft, a feature that sets it apart from pretty much every other American V8, which has a cross-plane crankshaft. This flat-plane setup, which you see more frequently in V8s from exotics like Ferrari (and more recently, the Chevy Corvette Z06), means the Voodoo can rev all the way to 8,250 rpm.

These cars were insanely desirable when they were new, with Mustang freaks happily paying fat dealer markups to be the first to get their hands on one. Now, though, they’ve depreciated to the point where you can buy one for nearly as cheap as a new Honda Accord.

The Value Per Dollar Here Is Wild

If you paid attention to the car-o-sphere back when this Mustang was new, like I did, you’ll know just how positively received it was by the media. Everyone who drove this thing absolutely loved it, mainly because it was a departure from what Ford normally considered a Shelby-branded Mustang to be (that is, extremely powerful and quick in a straight line, but not good at much else).

The GT350 was quick, sure—Car and Driver squeezed a 0-60 time of 4.3 seconds for the standard version during testing—but straightline speed wasn’t the point, here. Where this Shelby shone was in the corners. From C/D’s original review:

With the six-speed slotted into gear and the surprisingly light clutch lifted, the GT350 leapt onto the asphalt of Monterey’s Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. First corner and first impressions: tight, tied-down, stable, maybe a little bit of push but, hey, the car’s cold and a bit heavy.

[…]

The brakes—oof, such brakes!—chomp down, but the nose doesn’t dive. The car isn’t crossed up or squirming, it’s flat and stable and ready to turn right now! Less understeer this time, a perfect arc scribed from the white line to apex to white line. And it’s on the gas again, the sound flooding back—that addictive, dazzling, erotic exhale of lyric fire.

Yes. Yes, indeed. Ford is serious.

While the engine delivered less horsepower than the outgoing Shelby, it was far from forgettable. From that same review:

You want an engine with character? The GT350’s “Voodoo” V-8 is Brad Pitt, the Terminator, and James Bond coming at you with matching wry grins.

Everybody wants to know first what this 5.2-liter, 526-hp engine sounds like. Even when making its full 92-decibel war cry, it’s not a loping boom-boom like we’re used to from a muscle car, but rather a faster, more syncopated thrum that is more like what you hear from a Ferrari.

That is all to say, the Shelby GT350 is a pretty special car with a decidedly special engine. So when it went out of production a few years back, I assumed used models would never really depreciate, and lower-mile examples would actually go up in value. While most used examples still sit above the 2015 model’s MSRP of $47,795, there are a few you can get for much cheaper.

This classically spec’d 2016 model with its white paint and blue racing stripes on Carvana with 69,000 miles is $44,990, or about $3,000 cheaper than a brand-new Mustang GT. Want something a bit flashier? This red-painted GT350 with 53,000 miles, for sale via TrueCar, can be yours for $39,859.

If you’re not scared of miles, you can find some truly incredible deals. This red one for sale in Alabama has an impressive 149,000 miles on the clock, and it can be yours for just $29,990. That’s as cheap as a new Honda Accord, and $1,000 cheaper than the cheapest new Miata.

Are You Ready To Risk It All?

I’m all for buying heavily depreciated sports cars. I built my career on doing that exact thing, after all. But if you’re willing to dive into the world of cheap, second-hand performance machines, you should probably proceed with caution.

Just because GT350s like the example above are priced like normie commuter cars doesn’t mean they’ll act like normie commuter cars. The Voodoo V8 is a high-strung piece of complex engineering, as Car and Driver found out in its long-term test:

As marvelous as the high-revving V-8 is, its thirst for oil and gas proved insatiable. Run it hard and it will drink premium at an alarming rate. During one of our mountain blasts, the GT350 emptied its tank in 151 miles at an average of 10 mpg. Our 17-mpg test average was 1 mpg better than the EPA’s combined rating, but ours includes many miles on the interstates. And then there’s the oil-consumption issue: Over 40,000 miles, we added 21.5 quarts of 5W-50. That’s in addition to scheduled oil changes. It’s the most we’ve ever added during a long-term test by a long shot.

Your experience will probably be similar if you were to buy a used example, depending on how often the previous owner drove the car to redline (if they used the car properly, it was probably often). Many of these cars likely lived hard lives, with track days and back road blasts accounting for much of the odometer. So expect to replace expensive wear items sooner rather than later, especially if you get into a car with a lot of miles.

The GT350 is also just a lot of car. Going from something like a GTI or a Civic Si to a GT350, which is now priced similarly, is a massive delta in limits and capability. So if you don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to big V8s and rear-wheel drive, I suggest going to a driver’s school or a few autocrosses to get used to it, lest you end up like the dozens upon dozens of Mustang drivers that have embarrassed themselves leaving Cars and Coffee events. But if you’re daring enough, it’s a fantastic opportunity to get into a legendary car for very little money.

Top graphic image: Ford