2013 Shelby 1000 S/C Will Debut in New York with 1200 HP

We’ve already seen the Shelby 1000; it was one of the last cars to come out of Shelby American before its founder, Carroll Shelby, passed away. And we’ve heard the figures, as well: the Shelby 1000 makes just under 1000 horsepower (950 in stock form). Forget those numbers and those trim levels, because there’s a new Shelby 1000, and it makes 1000 horsepower…but this time, it makes that figure at the wheels. You might recall that the last Shelby 1000 made 950 horsepower in street-legal form, but Shelby says that every one of its buyers opted instead for the Shelby 1000 S/C, which gave up its street-legal status in exchange for a power output of 1100 horsepower at the flywheel. This time around, Shelby says that it’s making a single model, the 1000 S/C, which promises street-legal status and more than 1000 horsepower. The biggest upgrade over the last-generation car, as you might expect, comes under the hood. Shelby’s haste to release the 1000 on the 50 th anniversary of the original Shelby Cobra meant that it had to use the “old” Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 engine, a 5.4-liter supercharged V-8. This time around, the boys from Las Vegas borrowed the 5.8-liter supercharged motor from the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 and went from there. When we say “went from there,” we mean “upgraded almost everything:” the 2013 1000 S/C has a new 4.0-liter supercharger, new engine innards (including rods, pistons, and rings), a new fuel system with new injector, and a new cooling system. The result is 1200 horsepower at the flywheel; figuring that the upgraded six-speed manual transmission saps has a driveline loss of about 15 percent, we’d predict that the 1000 S/C makes between 1020 and 1050 horsepower at the wheels. Shelby didn’t release any acceleration or top-speed figures, but we’d predict that they’re somewhere between “oh wow” and “holy crap.” “Oh wow” is also a good way to describe the price for this monster machine: the Shelby 1000 starts at $154,995, and that’s on top of the price of a 2013 Shelby GT500 ($54,995 including destination). That means an all-inclusive base price of $209,990, although that 210 grand will get you a car that can fluster a Bugatti Veyron costing five times as much. Shelby also says that the car will be fully street legal and smog legal in every state but California, which means that those individuals who are both insane and wealthy could use this as a daily driver. The 2013 Shelby 1000 S/C will debut at the New York International Auto Show next week next to another new concept vehicle. Shelby carefully used the word “vehicle” in its press release, and says “like the Shelby Focus ST, it will not be Ford Mustang-based,” perhaps indicating that we’re about to see a Shelby-tuned Ford F-150. We can dream, right?