Shelby American Reveals 850 HP Super Snake-R At Monterey Car Week
Shelby American just reminded everyone at Monterey Car Week that America is the home of muscle cars. Behold the 850-plus horsepower follow-up to the already-blisteringly quick Shelby Super Snake. Built atop the top trim Ford Mustang Dark Horse, the latest Shelby is called the Super Snake-R. Aside from extra power to the heavily-modded engine, it’s been “designed for maximum track performance,” meaning quite a bit of fettling has also been done to the chassis, the suspension, and the aerodynamics.
The Super Snake-R, sales for which will begin next year, will be available in limited numbers, though Shelby has not officially confirmed how many will actually be built. And it won’t be remotely cheap. Prices start at a hefty $224,995, putting the Super Snake-R in the same general arena as the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X and Porsche’s 911 GT3. However, it’s still $100,000 less than Ford’s in-house super ‘Stang, the GTD. Here’s what you get for all that coin.
“Well Over 850 Horsepower” Available From Supercharged V8
At the heart of the Super Snake-R lies the same 5.0-liter V8 powering the premium-spec Ford Mustang Dark Horse, albeit with power upped from 500 horsepower to “well over 850 horsepower” thanks to a supercharger and other engine upgrades. This is 20 hp up on the current Shelby Super Snake, introduced a little under 18 months ago, and, yes, 90 hp over the previous-generation (and Ford-built) Shelby GT500. Again, Shelby didn’t give an exact figure in its official announcement, nor do we know any specifics about torque. But you can have it with the Dark Horse 10-speed automatic or a six-speed Tremec TR-3160 manual, the latter of which gets a cool Shelby shift knob.
Seismic grunt, however, is just one of the Super Snake-R’s party pieces, as the sinuous supercharged serpent is essentially Shelby’s answer to Ford’s street-legal, 800-horsepower Mustang GTD – developed in tandem with the Mustang GT3. Chief among them are additional chassis bracing for improved balance, and a wider stance that allowed Shelby’s engineers to fit 20-inch lightweight magnesium alloys. Wider 335-35/20 Michelin tires have been added for improved traction. Behind all that you’ll find performance-spec, two-piece slotted rotors.
New “Gamer Changer” Suspension
Shelby also goes to great lengths to promote its new coil-over independent suspension setup. A more aggressively tuned but still fully-adjustable development of the system used on the previous Super Snake, this suspension, Shelby claims, allows the R to be “more connected and more poised” than any of the previous iterations. By contrast, the GTD uses a more advanced, semi-automatic hydraulic setup that can be leveled and lowered by as much as 40 millimeters.
Unsurprisingly, several aerodynamic tweaks differentiate the R from its Super Snake sibling, the most notable of which are the newly-flared, wide-body front fenders, a new front splitter and vented hood, a gigantic spoiler, and a hydraulically-controlled active rear wing. A “bold optional graphics package” is also available, as seen here with the fiery red Shelby. Peruse our photo gallery below to see how the tamer version gets along.
Each Shelby Super Snake R uses carbon for its special body bits to reduce weight, though it still tips the scales at 4,004 pounds, so there’s plenty of not carbon in the mix. However, it’s worth noting that, despite the additions, the newest Shelby is just 116 pounds more than the full-fat Dark Horse Mustang.
Naturally, for a limited-edition Shelby, the R also features Super Snake door sill plates, bespoke plaques across the dash and engine, and embroidered floor mats as part of the Shelby-spec upgraded leather interior. But we can forgive Shelby for pushing the boat out, given that this 2026 model marks the first time that an ‘R’ variant of the Super Snake will be produced since the model name was introduced in 1967.
Source: Shelby American
