It's a valid argument and fun to think about. Why opt for a basic 550hpGT500E when there's a 725hp option available? The 200 extra horsepowerputs you in an exclusive club of Super Snake owners, with a build runlimited to 75 units.
At $150,000 and a little change for options and accessories, you mightbe asking yourself if there are 75 buyers for this car.
The day we took these pictures last March, Unique Performance--theproduction facility that makes "Eleanors" with the full blessing andordination of Carroll Shelby--informed us 18 were on order andproduction had just begun.
That's a healthy number for a '67 Mustang that's 20 grand higher than anexotic turbo Porsche. Douglas Schwartz of El Paso, Texas, ordered thisone. Serial number 009, it's technically the first Super Snake off theline with the full supercharger treatment on the 427 engine. It waspreceded by a red Super Snake prototype, which was sold last summer at aKruse International classic car auction in Las Vegas.
Our minds were stretched on absolutes. We wondered if this Super Snake,in terms of raw horsepower, was the highest-performance Mustang eversold to the public. Doug Hasty, co-owner of Unique Performance, plantedthose seeds of curiosity.
When SVT Chief Engineer John Coletti dropped a 10.0L Boss 429 into a '94Mustang, the fuel-injected 604ci powerplant delivered 855 hp, more than725.
But wait. SVT's Boss was not produced for public consumption. It was aconcept car made to run 10s in the quarter-mile and to wow the troops atshows. A series-produced Mustang it wasn't. The Super Snake is.
Neither Hasty nor his cohorts, David Reed and Bobby Mikus, or the restof the production crew could think of a Mustang with more power.Schwartz was of the same mind. He couldn't think of another Mustang,factory or tuner, that delivered this much horsepower. The '00 SaleenMustang SR is close, a response to the '00 Mustang Cobra R with a baseprice of $158,000, which boasted a blown 351 with 505 hp.
Clearly, the advantage goes to the new Shelby 427 aluminum block,engineered to higher standards than the original but using the sameconcept of big cubes in a high-winding V-8. The Shelby/Vortechsupercharger boosts power into the 725 range.
A look at the spec sheet reveals these early Super Snakes come withcarburetors, notable because Unique recently added a fuel-injectionoption to its '65 GT350SR. Now the company is developing fuel injectionfor the blown big-block as well.