Celebrating Mustang Club of America’s 40th Anniversary in a 2016 Ford Shelby GT350

When the Mustang Club of America invited us to help celebrate its 40^th anniversary, we knew it would be in poor taste to roll up in anything other than Ford’s seminal Pony car. We grabbed the keys to a Lightning Blue 2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350, and roared down to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to participate in the fete.

I brought the best of the breed to this celebration, but the new big-dog Mustang is a break from 50-year traditions. The 2016 Ford Shelby GT350’s badge remains one of the most prolific names in the Mustang world, but that didn’t stop Ford from slapping it on a rather unconventional Pony. Line up the 2016 GT350 with other historic stand-out ‘Stangs, and you’ll see just how far Ford has come. Around back, a fully independent rear suspension weeds out all solid-axle ancestors, save the hens-teeth Cobras from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Under the hood, the 5.2-liter, flat-plane crank V-8 spins up to a breathless 8,250 rpm—a decided departure from the big-cam thumpers of the 1960s and 1970s.In fact, perhaps only the ‘69-‘70 Boss 429 can go bumper-to-bumper with the exoticness of the GT350. The Boss’ 7.0-liter was a race-sourced warhead, reportedly able to handle a 9,000-rpm redline, though 6,200 was the insurance-mandated limit.

The five-hour drive down from Detroit to Indy offered plenty of time to become accustomed to the Shelby. This is Ford’s track-rat Mustang, the car for those more accustomed to lap times that trap speeds. The suspension, brakes, and tires may place a laser-focus on trackday duty, but our backs and spirits remained unbent even after running the gamut of Detroit and Indy’s broken highways. I credit the optional MagneRide suspension included with the optional-for-2016 Track Pack (standard for 2017), which is comfortably pliant in regular mode but properly stiff in Sport and Track settings.

Thanks to its wild crankshaft, the 5.2-liter Voodoo V-8 spins to redline like nothing else short of the six-figure mark. Downshifts for highway passing are vicious, each gear arriving with a bark from the anxious engine. Once you calm down and settle into the cruise, it’s nearly as civil as a regular rental-spec GT. Despite the sky-high redline, the Shelby pootles along at a drone-free tick under 3,000 rpm at cruising speed, allowing your eardrums to survive with nary a rupture.

Fresh from the road, I pulled into the infield of the legendary oval to the sound of thunder. In a shamrock-green meadow just off the infield service road, attendee’s lined up their prized Ponies. Every style, generation, color, and variant was on parade. For the Mustang sectarian, this is the Empyrean. From bone-stock Mustang II survivors, well-loved Cobras, and big-buck trailer custom trailer queens, everyone was welcome. After getting my fill out on the field, I moseyed on over to the enclosed display areas; these were carpeted hallways brimmed with low-mileage rarities, including a sizeable cluster of the aforementioned Boss 429.

For those who would rather be participants rather than spectators, confident drivers could scrub some rubber on either a parking lot autocross course or the infield circuit. We didn’t pre-register, so the GT350 remained parked for the festivities.

Despite throttled production and dealer markup, there were many GT350s in attendance. My hopes of acting as one of the sovereign ‘Stangs at the show were immediately dashed, as I was joined by three or four Ford-owned GT350s in my exact same spec. Add in the handful of privately owned Shelbys, and you could lose sight of my car in the crowded corral.

Ubiquity aside, the MCA anniversary was much more than commemorating the four decades of institution. This was a celebration of the car community as a whole, a good-natured gathering of like-minded enthusiasts who persevered through the dark days of the mid-1970s and the late 1990s to enjoy cars like the stupendous 2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350.

Happy birthday, Mustang Club of America. Here’s to four more decades.

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