Hertz recently teased something fun that’s going to be based on the Ford Mustang. A photo shared by the rental company on Twitter shows an S550 Mustang with a slatted hood, and the iconic black/gold color combination. Any muscle car enthusiast should be excited about this one. As for whether or not it’s the return of the Shelby GT350H – the legendary rental racer – or something new based on the Shelby GT500 remains a mystery that will stay a secret until May 10th.
The same paint scheme in the teaser photo would have been found on the 1966 GT350H that Hertz would have rented to you almost 60 years ago for its Rent-a Racer program. The program was a partnership between Hertz and Shelby American. Regular people were able to drive Shelby’s race-modified Mustang for a lot cheaper than buying one. Renters were even allowed to take the cars out on track days.
It all seemed like a pretty good idea to get The People behind the wheel of a high-performance race car, that is until people got a little too smart, and started stealing the 306 horsepower K-code 289 V8s out of the rented vehicles and returning them with low-powered engines. A reminder that we can’t have nice things.
As for whether or not it will be the return of the Shelby GT350H… the S550 Ford Mustang GT350 left us in 2020 retiring the 5.2 L flat-plane crank V8 nicknamed the “Voodoo” in the process. The engine could wind up to 8,500 RPM, where it produced 526 horsepower, a peak torque number of 429 lb-ft was available lower in the rev range.It was an absolute screamer. Ford indirectly replaced the Shelby GT350 with the Coyote-powered Mustang Mach 1, which has been on sale globally since 2021.
Ford, Hertz, and Shelby revived rent a racer for the 40th anniversary of the program and produced 1,001 GT350H examples for people to rent. The trio would team up again in 2016 for the 50th anniversary, but this time only 140 special edition hurts GT350H Mustang muscle cars would be built. But with the GT350 nameplate in the garage once again, there’s opportunity to leverage the Mustang Shelby GT500. Either way, this could be quite the sendoff for the S550 generation, which will sunset next year as the S650 Mustang is set to debut in the first half of 2022.
Hertz hasn’t kept things exclusive to Ford Performance models, either. In 2019, the rental vehicle giant announced unique Chevrolet Camaros for rent with special performance upgrades from Hendrick Motorsports.
MC&T will keep you updated with all the information we can when the vehicle is revealed on May 10th.
