Why is the Shelby Super Snake so expensive?

[Jasonb543]

This thread has me laughing. People trashing Shelby American. But hey don't ever say anything bad about a GT350.......

I will, my brother had a 350R with long tubes and E85 tune… biggest Fn turd he ever owned.

sure they rev to 9k it takes all day long to get there.
He sold it during the Covid spike and bought a 2020 Gt500, pulley, injectors and E85 tune and the car runs 9s easily… he’s thrilled.

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[s2ms]

This thread has me laughing. People trashing Shelby American. But hey don't ever say anything bad about a GT350.......

Well, the current GT350 has nothing to do with Shelby American...

 

[daSNAK3]

Definitely overpriced for what you get, better off buying a GT and making it your own, IMO. Seems like a watered down Shelby to me.

 

[LetItRide1978]

The average Shelby American customer, including me if I had the money, is not taking their car to the drag strip. Most are probably garage queens, going to cars and coffee, or putting around town. They are made for people who just enjoy driving. Expensive as hell but that’s what people are willing to pay for the Shelby name.

 

[Strokerswild]

A lot of people seem to forget that the Shelbys of the '60s were nothing but garden variety Mustangs modified by Shelby American....sound familiar?

 

[Angrey]

The concept that most people either miss altogether or have a vague understanding is called VALUE.

Value is simply the amount of benefit applied to the amount of cost.

Shelby American products are higher value to SOME people simply because of the name and convenience of having a single shop assemble and sell turn key.

I personally think the SA products are low value. They're great cars, they're just VERY expensive for what you ACTUALLY get in terms of upgrade over the base GT model.

This happens for a number of reasons, not trivial of which is that you're paying 2 LAYERS of OEM style overhead, profit and burden. Every SA product starts off as a Ford product. So imagine buying a meal from one restaurant, dropping it off at another and having the second one church it up. You're paying retail costs for both restaurants.

The Shelby "Licensed" products are more compelling because you're skipping some of the duplication. Shelby works with Ford Racing to approve the final layout/features of the car and slap their name, likeness on it.

You'd be VERY hard pressed to replicate a GT350 or a GT500 (latest gen) by upgrading all the parts and components to a GT and come out cheaper than you could buy it from Ford. In fact, it's impossible. The list of components is lengthy and some of them are major coin, both in material/parts cost and labor.

The Shelby American products however, it's not only possible, in some cases, if you're willing to do the work yourself, you can actually come out significantly ahead. About the ONLY thing that Shelby offers on the SA products that's completely proprietary and exclusive is their widebody panels. They'll no longer sell those to you, you HAVE to buy them and have them installed at their Vegas facility. The rest of it, you could literally BUY AT RETAIL PRICES, INSTALL IT YOURSELF and come out ahead.

Before some ass clown says "yeah, some people don't want to go through that hassle." I agree, but the mere possibility that you could replicate the SA product for cheaper than what it costs demonstrates it's LOWER VALUE than say the licensed products they partnered with Ford.

To others, just like the difference in a Tiffany diamond and a generic diamond......there's value. Is the same diamond (cut, clarity, color, weight, etc) from Tiffany worth more than the identical GSA certified generic diamond? The answer is, if the market believes it's true, then it has a higher value.

So in essence, it's very similar to the "crate engine" packages from FRPP and Ford Racing. Those offerings are great, but they're insanely expensive for what you actually get and in most cases, they don't make financial sense unless you're starting from zero and haven't already purchased a car. Most of those crate engine packages are for people with more money than automotive knowledge and just want a simple turn key solution. For someone building a restoration project there's better value in having a bunch of the supporting parts/pieces, but overall, you can take $30k and modify your existing stuff and come out ahead.

At the end of the day, it comes down to each persons evaluation of value. Do I think First class is nicer than economy? Absolutely. Am I willing to pay 3x as much on a 4 hour flight? Nope. On a 12 hour flight across the pond, the calculus is different for me. Each person has their own views of the benefits and that changes their value assessement.

 

[Angrey]

I will, my brother had a 350R with long tubes and E85 tune… biggest Fn turd he ever owned.

sure they rev to 9k it takes all day long to get there.
He sold it during the Covid spike and bought a 2020 Gt500, pulley, injectors and E85 tune and the car runs 9s easily… he’s thrilled.

Your brother is throwing money away. If all he wanted was a 9 second straight line car, he could have done that easily by modifying a base model mustang GT and saved quite a bit. People buy the GT350 and GT500 for more than a straight line muscle car. If that's the extent of your measuring stick, then there's much cheaper routes.

If all you care about is towing capacity, it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to buy a Raptor.

If all you're going to do at the gym is bench press and beach curls, you're better off simply buying a bench and weights and some dumbells and workout at home than paying for a gym membership where you have all sorts of other workout equipment and options.

 

[Jstang23]

The concept that most people either miss altogether or have a vague understanding is called VALUE.

Value is simply the amount of benefit applied to the amount of cost.

Shelby American products are higher value to SOME people simply because of the name and convenience of having a single shop assemble and sell turn key.

I personally think the SA products are low value. They're great cars, they're just VERY expensive for what you ACTUALLY get in terms of upgrade over the base GT model.

This happens for a number of reasons, not trivial of which is that you're paying 2 LAYERS of OEM style overhead, profit and burden. Every SA product starts off as a Ford product. So imagine buying a meal from one restaurant, dropping it off at another and having the second one church it up. You're paying retail costs for both restaurants.

The Shelby "Licensed" products are more compelling because you're skipping some of the duplication. Shelby works with Ford Racing to approve the final layout/features of the car and slap their name, likeness on it.

You'd be VERY hard pressed to replicate a GT350 or a GT500 (latest gen) by upgrading all the parts and components to a GT and come out cheaper than you could buy it from Ford. In fact, it's impossible. The list of components is lengthy and some of them are major coin, both in material/parts cost and labor.

The Shelby American products however, it's not only possible, in some cases, if you're willing to do the work yourself, you can actually come out significantly ahead. About the ONLY thing that Shelby offers on the SA products that's completely proprietary and exclusive is their widebody panels. They'll no longer sell those to you, you HAVE to buy them and have them installed at their Vegas facility. The rest of it, you could literally BUY AT RETAIL PRICES, INSTALL IT YOURSELF and come out ahead.

Before some ass clown says "yeah, some people don't want to go through that hassle." I agree, but the mere possibility that you could replicate the SA product for cheaper than what it costs demonstrates it's LOWER VALUE than say the licensed products they partnered with Ford.

To others, just like the difference in a Tiffany diamond and a generic diamond......there's value. Is the same diamond (cut, clarity, color, weight, etc) from Tiffany worth more than the identical GSA certified generic diamond? The answer is, if the market believes it's true, then it has a higher value.

So in essence, it's very similar to the "crate engine" packages from FRPP and Ford Racing. Those offerings are great, but they're insanely expensive for what you actually get and in most cases, they don't make financial sense unless you're starting from zero and haven't already purchased a car. Most of those crate engine packages are for people with more money than automotive knowledge and just want a simple turn key solution. For someone building a restoration project there's better value in having a bunch of the supporting parts/pieces, but overall, you can take $30k and modify your existing stuff and come out ahead.

At the end of the day, it comes down to each persons evaluation of value. Do I think First class is nicer than economy? Absolutely. Am I willing to pay 3x as much on a 4 hour flight? Nope. On a 12 hour flight across the pond, the calculus is different for me. Each person has their own views of the benefits and that changes their value assessement.

Well said.

But you also have to keep in mind the resell value of the Shelby cars, mainly the SS. Sure you can buy most of the parts and build a nearly identical car for 30k cheaper. But I guarantee you you'll lose almost all of the money put into it. If anyone has tried to sell a highly modified car to the dealership they give you almost nothing for mods. The only real way to get some of that value back is through auction, which doesn't always work out. Sure there's the argument that there's a buyer who will pay what you ask, but its worth its weight in gold to be able to take the car to a dealership and get almost all of your money back.

If I were to buy a SS I could more than likely sell it to a dealership for within 5k of what I paid for it originally, assuming I don't put thousands of miles on it. Unfortunately, that's just the way the world works. Even with the crate engine turn key packages from ford, I've never had a dealership give me anywhere close to the value I put into the car. On my last mustang, every mod I did was ford performance or steeda. The dealership I sold to told me they wouldn't give me a dime for any of it.

 

[K4fxd]

The dealership I sold to told me they wouldn't give me a dime for any of it.

Most would rather you put it back to stock.

 

[Jstang23]

Most would rather you put it back to stock.

You're exactly right! I was told by several friends that I would get more money for a un modified car, I decided to try my luck. Long story short I should have listened, lol.

 

[Jstang23]

It seems I owe this thread a bit of an apology...

My experience seeing a stock SS beat at stock GT500 on the track was not exactly true. I reached out to the owner of the SS and asked was it truly stock and he said no. He put the steeda stop the hop kit on and had Cup 2 Rs on. He also had track pads installed. It did beat the gt500 but I believe the upgrades made this a bit of a unfair race. I apologize as my experience did not have all the facts.

 

[shogun32]

He put the steeda stop the hop kit on and had Cup 2 Rs on. He also had track pads installed. It did beat the gt500

The GT500 owner had no excuse not to FIX his own car with all the same Steeda parts. The SS won fair and square - the owner took the time to address the STUPID by Ford Engineering

 

[Angrey]

Well said.

But you also have to keep in mind the resell value of the Shelby cars, mainly the SS. Sure you can buy most of the parts and build a nearly identical car for 30k cheaper. But I guarantee you you'll lose almost all of the money put into it. If anyone has tried to sell a highly modified car to the dealership they give you almost nothing for mods. The only real way to get some of that value back is through auction, which doesn't always work out. Sure there's the argument that there's a buyer who will pay what you ask, but its worth its weight in gold to be able to take the car to a dealership and get almost all of your money back.

If I were to buy a SS I could more than likely sell it to a dealership for within 5k of what I paid for it originally, assuming I don't put thousands of miles on it. Unfortunately, that's just the way the world works. Even with the crate engine turn key packages from ford, I've never had a dealership give me anywhere close to the value I put into the car. On my last mustang, every mod I did was ford performance or steeda. The dealership I sold to told me they wouldn't give me a dime for any of it.

I think few would argue that the SA products don't hold their value better than a modified car, especially when any dealer is concerned, but that's more of a back end consideration.

It's like, "Should we buy this 5 bedroom luxury home for $1.5M or buy this 4 bedroom semi-custom home for $500k." It's about how much money you're sinking into it (the value). An argument (weaker) could be made that investing in the more expensive property will yield better resale later, but cars are generally terrible capital investments and depreciate severely over the first few decades (especially when you consider insurance, maintenance and recurring costs).

The real question is whether you feel that the upgrades are worth the $140k price tag. I'd argue no. The GT500 in stock form (to me) is better and still carries the Shelby name (although Shelby purists turn their nose up at the licensed product).

From a strictly PERFORMANCE measurement of value, (which is largely where I speak from) the Super Snake is very low value. Sure, you get a lot, but it COSTS A LOT. True, you get the uniqueness and the notoriety of having something few have, but in terms of pure performance, it's a low value purchase (only because it's so expensive).

 

[Angrey]

Well, the current GT350 has nothing to do with Shelby American...

That's not exactly true. Ford paid SA good money to use the Shelby name and logo/brand/image. Some other gurus can weigh in on just how much Ford Racing involved SA in the development input, but once "Shelby" sold their name to go on the car, they get credit (and or criticism) for it.

It's no different than when Trump sells his name for a Trump property or when Dewalt puts their branding on a product. Dewalt makes very little of what they sell, it's manufactured by someone else and sold/licensed to them and sold under their name/brand.

 

[K4fxd]

That's not exactly true. Ford paid SA good money to use the Shelby name and logo/brand/image. Some other gurus can weigh in on just how much Ford Racing involved SA in the development input, but once "Shelby" sold their name to go on the car, they get credit (and or criticism) for it.

So a Mach 1 really is a GT350 without a VooDoo engine......

Ducks and runs....................

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