Ford Mustang GT500 2020 confirmed for Oz, but you won't believe the price

The Shelby GT500 – the fastest Mustang ever built – will be coming to Australia, but it’ll cost a pretty penny and won’t come directly from Ford.

Mustang Motorsport, a Victorian mod-shop which specialises in building Shelby variants from Australian-delivered Mustangs and part kits from the US, says it will be importing and converting GT500s if a new law passes allowing variants not sold in Australia to be imported and sold locally.

Mustang Motorsport told CarsGuide that it was still waiting on some details to be confirmed later this year, but was keen to start bringing cars across “as soon as possible”. While it was not taking pre-orders yet, the shop said interest had been significant, and if all the legal conditions are met, imports could kick off from December.

If that’s all sounding good to you, we hope you have deep pockets, as Mustang Motorsport expects that converted GT500s will set prospective owners back “between $300,000 and $450,000”. As to how many will come across, the shop said it all depends on the number of orders it takes.

Mustang Motorsport said it cannot build GT500s from existing Australian-delivered Mustangs as it was too significantly re-engineered to make that a reality.

This wheel could be migrating to the other side of one of these cars sometime next year...

This comes after earlier reports that Ford’s local operation would not be bringing the GT500 down under, stating that the 567kW monster was a strictly left-hand-drive affair, much to the chagrin of Ford enthusiasts who were after a ‘Stang to one-up the recently released Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

The Camaro is also only manufactured in left-hand drive and is converted to right-hand drive in Australia by Holden Special Vehicles.

Read More About Ford Mustang

H SV's Camaro ZL1 reviewed

Mustang Motorsport says it will also endeavour to bring the GT500’s less-powerful sibling from Shelby, the GT350, to Australia next year.

The GT500 is the fastest and most powerful Mustang ever produced by Ford’s performance arm at Shelby, with its 5.2-litre V8 producing official figures of 567kW/847Nm.

The extra power is channelled to the rear wheels courtesy of a Tremec seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, as opposed to the regular Mustang’s eight-speed torque converter automatic from ZF. The current zero-100km/h sprint is rated at 3.5 seconds.

When it arrives here, Mustang enthusiasts will be able to go up against Camaro ZL1 owners, who can make use of 477kW/881Nm from the angriest Chev ’s 6.2-litre V8, which also comes in at the much cheaper price of $162,190 in 10-speed auto guise.

Unlike the ZL1, the GT500 doesn’t come from Shelby’s factory with a manual transmission.

How much is too much for a GT500? Tell us what you think in the comments below.