For a brief moment in history, the most ambiguous thing about a Shelby Ford Mustang—Ford Mustang Shelby? Mustang Shelby Ford? Fustang Shord Melby?—isn’t the order its names go in. It’s the price, because in case you hadn’t searched a 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 lately, it’s not the holiday season.
It’s markup season.
That’s right, kids. GT500 MSRPs might start under $73,000, but that doesn’t mean some of your neighborhood dealerships are going to let one go for that little. As pointed out by Autoblog, the most expensive GT500 on Autotrader is currently listed at $169,999, despite the configurator options appearing to max out at less than $110,000. Another dealership whose GT500 MRSP is listed at $105,890 actually wants $145,890 for it, and the six-digit prices continue right on down the list despite a lot of five-digit MSRPs. Some are simply listed as “Contact Dealer for Price,” which is rightfully ominous.
The GT500 is good, and this kind of thing often happens with good cars that are meant to be a more “reasonable” alternative to luxury supercars. The 2020 car is the most recent since the one Ford ended production of in 2014, which had a 5.8-liter supercharged V8 and a rated 662 horsepower. This one makes 760 HP.
Its semi-cyclical nature and performance makes the GT500 special, and special cars often come with special prices—at least, special to the dealerships getting the cash.
Markup seasons come and go with cars that fit in the “alternative to luxury supercars” category, and some markups, like those on the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, never quite go away. That’s because while automakers set MSRPs, dealers can price the cars based on demand and wealthy clientele willing to pay markups—even if encouraged not to by the automakers whose cars they’re selling. That discouragement can cause dealers to get creative.
Markups, basically, are part of the car industry, no matter whether automakers discourage them or buyers who are only prospective near MSRP condemn them. People will buy the marked-up cars and plenty of dealers will sit on them until they do, meaning the formerly prospective buyers likely won’t get to sit in the cars until they’ve been on the used market for a number of years.
Ah, well. At least the people priced out of the new GT500 won’t have to field questions about what order its names actually go in and why on Earth that order was chosen, right?
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