Shelby has given us a sneak peek of the upcoming 2013 GT500 Super Snake with these new photos of the first example under production at their facility in Las Vegas. The hood, front bumper and wheels are off the car, all to be replaced with Super Snake specific parts. The company is offering little details as far as what modifications are being done to the car, although Shelby president John Luft clued us in to what to expect from the upcoming Super Snake at the New York Auto Show back in April.
“With the base car being such a performer, it’s going to cause us and push us to look at where we can gain in the handling performance,” he told us. “That’s going to be the suspension, the braking, the weight in the vehicle. We are doing a lot with composites and carbon fiber. We’ll look for opportunities like that. The bottom line is that a Shelby has to be distinctly different than the base vehicle. That’s our obligation, and if we can’t give you as much under the hood then we have to find places to increase performance elsewhere.”
Luft also said that we shouldn’t initially expect the same horsepower gains found on the previous generation Super Snake, which saw an increase of 250 horsepower.
“If you think about the incremental gains in horsepower we were running on an average of 100-125 horsepower is what we typically took from the base to the next level Super Snake. Now to take the 550 horsepower GT500 to take it to 800 was a big leap. We probably won’t be able to maintain that same amount. So when it comes to the 2013 generation of Super Snake, maybe there won’t be as much gain under the hood as we’ve had in the latest version, but where we make it up is in the styling, braking, handling, cooling, etc.”
We’ll bring you more details about the 2013 Shelby GT500 Super Snake when we get them, but until then you can see photos of the first car under construction in the gallery below.
