There’s a stage in the vehicle development process where after the vehicle is fully revealed, that engineers and other people involved in a program drive these vehicles out in the public. You may not know it, but an ill fate awaits just about all of them. Once they’ve been cycled through, these vehicles, which non-salable builds often with out VINs, are sent to the crusher, where they are eventually recycled into new builds. However, some of these examples manage to escape death. And that’s what we have here today with this S197 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 muscle car, which is being auctioned off at Barrett-Jackson later this month.
It wasn’t a barn find, it was better. According to the consignor of the Mustang GT500, once Ford had specifications for a production model, they no longer needed their pre-production models, so they sent them to the crusher or auctioned them off. The consignor who bought the vehicle from a private owner in Pennsylvania in late 2014 did not discover the uniqueness of this particular 2013 Mustang GT500 until he ordered a replacement window sticker. The process revealed the destination of the vehicle, which is usually a dealership somewhere, was actually listed as Diversified, the home of the Ford Chassis design center in Romulus, Michigan. The Mustang GT500 also had a VIN number 6,776 lower than the 2013 Vin 001 Mustang that was sold in 2015 for $308,000.
The Shelby GT500 racked up 3,500 miles while it was with Ford then another 13,584 by its next owner to get to its current mileage of 17,084. This 2013 Mustang is also a by-product of the 20th anniversary of Ford’s SVT group (since disbanded and turned into Ford Performance) which was notorious for designing iconic vehicles such as the 1993 Mustang SVT Cobra. To commemorate this special year the group set out with the goal of creating the fastest production car for 2013.
Even faster than today’s aero-limited S550 Mustang Shelby GT500, this last-gen GT500 could reach 200 MPH. The build date of the vehicle is February of 2012 and sports a supercharged 5.8L V8 engine pushing out 662 horsepower connected to a 6-speed transmission. The vehicle will go on the auction block with no reserve June 30th in Las Vegas.
