Earlier this week, Shelby announced that it would be unveiled its 950+ horsepower “Shelby 1000” model at next weeks New York Auto Show. The press release was loaded with photos information on this upcoming Shelby, including the availability of either a 950 horsepower street trim, or 1,100 horsepower track model.
Just a day later though, Shelby admitted that a few of the photos had been faked. Even so, a 1,000 horsepower Shelby is impressive, and Road & Track magazine has the first video of this new Mustang in action.
“Shelbygate” is the name we are dubbing this non-issue, which centers around two drag racing photos which show the front wheels of the Shelby 1000 coming off the ground. USA Today’s photo analysts were the first one to notice that the tires did not look to be under stress. If you look hard at the above photo, it becomes plenty obvious that these pictures were manipulated. For its part, Shelby spokesmen admitted that the photos were faked, and they they were “beyond embarrassed”.
But do we really care if the photos were manipulated or not? Most major OEM’s don’t even take pictures of their new cars, they just create the images in programs that make Photoshop look like Microsoft Paint. Road & Track was lucky enough to get some time to play with the new Shelby in the above video, and they don’t seem to have any complaints about a 1,000 horsepower Shelby. Do you?