After our recent First Drive of the game-changing 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 , we asked ourselves, Is it that much better than the GT350, a sports car that just earned second place in this years MotorTrend Best Drivers Car competition? Theyre both so good, its almost like having to choose your favorite child. I love them both for different reasons. Drag Race If we simply look at specs, the supercharged GT500 trounces the GT350 with a 234-horsepower advantage and 196 lb-ft more torque. Those differences would provide the GT500 a full second of cover to 60 mph (3.0 to 4.0 seconds) that would extend to the quarter mile, as well. Having run a couple 11.3s at a prepped but chewed-up dragstrip, we predict an 11 flat for the GT500 and have multiple 12.112.3-second passes on the GT350. The big tell that the GT500 wins the horsepower war is the trap speed at the end of the race, where the GT500 will be going in excess of 130 mph; the fastest GT350 weve tested was traveling 119.6 mph. Whoa! The GT500 is fitted with enormous 16.5-inch two-piece brake rotors plus Brembo six-piston calipers that are larger and stiffer than the GT350s, with 20 percent more swept area, as well. The improvements to the 15.5-inch disc brakes on this years GT350 are noticeable; weve sampled both cars on race tracks, and neither GT showed any signs of degradation. The GT500s 300-plus extra pounds is offset by its massive, vented binders. Well call this tie. Get a Grip Because the refreshed GT350 now comes with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires (used to have to get the GT350R for those) and the base GT500 has Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, well go out on a limb and say that, base car to base car, the GT350 has a slight edge in grip despite having only slightly narrower contact patches. The tables turn, though, when you step up to the GT350R and GT500 with the Carbon Fiber Track package (CFTP; it shouldve simply been called GT500R ). Gargantuan 305mm front and 315mm rear Cup 2 tires provide well over 1.0g acceleration in any direction for the GT500R. The Helm Both cars get a new and improved electric-assist power steering rack this year, based on the development of the GT500. Does the added weight on the nose of the GT500 hurt its steering/handling? The only time I noticed mild understeer was on overcooked slow-speed corners. Otherwise their crisp responses make them equals; inch-precise placement is entirely possible in either. Same Foundation Both Shelbys use the same 5.2-liter aluminum V-8 engine block and are both hand-assembled and signed, but thats where the similarities end . The GT350s uses a racy flat-plane crank that allows it to rev to a glorious 8,250 rpm, whereas the GT500 runs up to a stout 7,500 rpm with its more traditional cross-plane crank. How and where they make their respective peak power figures has much to do with their personalities. The naturally aspirated GT350 packs down gasses in the cylinder with a 12.0:1 compression ratio. The GT500s compresses the charge air up to 12 psi with an Eaton twin-vortices screw supercharger; air then gets sent up through the intercooler and then back down toward the intake valves. As a result, the GT500 uses a lower 9.5:1 compression ratio. Both use DOHC 32-valve heads and the same tubular stainless steel exhaust headers and X-pipe crossover exhaust with active mufflers. Revver versus Huffer The GT350 is, indeed, a sonorous revver, making its peak torque (429 lb-ft) at 4,750 rpm and 526 horsepower at 7,500 rpm. You can feel the GT350s Voodoo V-8 coming into its power as the engine revs, and revs, and revs. When your ears tell you redline is approaching, your eyes will tell you there are 3,000 rpm left in the range. There really isnt any other American V-8 like this. Pushrods be damned. It is a wonder this engine was even approved for production. That its available in a street car is marvelous. Contrast this with the blown GT500 Predator. It makes much more torque (625 lb-ft) at an even higher 5,000 rpm, but it doesnt feel like that. Despite the supercharger, the power delivery (and the shove in the small of your back) is very linear with no discernible peaks or valleys. It just pulls everywhere in the rev range and doesnt nose over, and because of this, its too easy to run up against the rev limiter. And it is explosively powerful. But unlike, say, an SRT Hellcat Redeyes prodigious and unusable power, the GT500 transfers power to the pavement in some miraculously Faustian way. I dont know how, but it just does. The Whiny One If I had to choose a winning engine between these two, Id go with the GT500s. I was conditioned to dislike supercharged V-8s (see Dodge ) because theyre sometimes hard to modulate and predict, but this lump is different. It can be docile and fade into the background, or it can erupt like Vesuviusdrivers choice. Plus it puts down power like an all-wheel-drive car. I love the high-revving GT350, but just you wait until you can experience the GT500s tractable V-8. Its addictive. I know it wouldnt fit, but I want to put one in the Ford GT to make that car really sing. Tremec versus Tremec Theres nothing like a well-sorted manual transmission to connect the driver to a car, to make the car need its driver. The Tremec TR-3160 is the only transmission available in the GT350, and it works exceedingly well. The clutch uptake is intuitive, it doesnt mind being hurried on a dragstrip, and theres something immensely satisfying about nailing a matched-rev downshift while operating all three pedals simultaneously. This is clearly the purists choice, and it would be a good one. Flappy Paddles The new Tremec TR-9070 seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual mandated in the GT500 is in a different category, really. It could have gone terribly wrong, but this is world-class stuff here. Clever programming and mapping change its behavior in the various drive modes, and we put it in a close second or third place to the benchmark Porsche PDK or McLaren seamless shift dual-clutch unit. Driven on the street, it effectively hides shifts and feels like an automatic. In Track mode, it cracks seamless 80-millisecond upshifts. In braking zones, it blips the throttle and smoothly downshifts, never upsetting the chassis. In manual mode, it will even buffer an overly eager requested downshift until it knows it wont over-rev the engine. The one thing the GT500 does not have is launch control in the sense that Porsche and McLaren do. In Drag mode, you may select a launch rpm, press both pedals to the floor, and then release the brake, but then youre on your own to quell wheelspin. Theres no closed-loop electronic system to optimize traction. It does have a trick weve never seen before in a production car, though: what Tremec calls over-torque shifting. Its a lot like a no-lift shift in a manual transmission. Over-torque maintains wide-open throttle and slurs two gears together to exploit the surge of inertia bottled up in the engine, and you can feel it in the small of your back. Theyre not the quickest shifts, but they do produce better ETs at the dragstrip. Winner If youve read this far, I think youll guess what Im about to choose. The Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 was a revelation when it made its debut, marking the first time a pony car could legitimately be called a sports car. It was, until this year, the best Mustang ever. Well, thats now changed. The GT500, especially when fitted with the Carbon Fiber Track package, is a supercar hunter in the way the last Dodge Viper ACR was. Not only is it amazingly capable, but its also easy to drive right up to its limits. There hasnt been such a fierce but friendly sports car since the Mercedes -AMG GT S. You read that right. For our money, the GT500 is the one to get. Find the extra money, and you wont be sorry. 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 (Carbon Fiber Track Pack) BASE PRICE $61,535 $73,995 ($92,495) LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD, 4-pass, 2-door coupe Front engine, RWD, 4(2)-pass, 2-door coupe ENGINE 5.2L/526-hp/429-lb-ft DOHC 32-valve V-8 5.2L/760-hp/625-lb-ft supercharged DOHC 32-valve V-8 TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual 7-speed twin-clutch automatic CURB WEIGHT 3,825 lb (53/47%) 4,200 lb mfr est (4,000 lb MT est) WHEELBASE 107.1 in 107.1 in L x W x H 188.9 x 75.9 x 54.2 in 189.5 x 76.6 x 54.3 (53.7) in 0-60 MPH 4.0 sec 3.0 sec (MT est) EPA FUEL ECON 14/21/16 mpg 12/18/14 mpg ON SALE Currently Currently The post 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 vs. GT500: Which Is the Better Sports Car? appeared first on MotorTrend .