What If? 2024 Shelby GT-e
Welcome to What If, a new feature from imaginative illustrator Abimelec Arellano and Hagerty. We’ll be taking you back in time—and possibly forward into the future—to meet alternative-universe automobiles. Even better, our time machine is working well enough to bring “short take” reviews along with the photographs and advertisements. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
(Originally appearing on the front page of the website Junklopy, on the morning of October 13, 2023, posted by a person referring to itself as “Democratic Socialist Unit Z/28”)
I hate cars so much. That should come as no surprise to those of you who have been reading me here on Junklopy for a while, even before I changed my name to “Democratic Socalist Unit Z/28”. (To get the most up-to-date information on how I demand to be addressed and/or referred to, check my Twitter page; I usually drop the new-new around 2 a.m. any night where my anxiety kicks in or I start to feel completely unloved.) Cars are the worst thing. They consume vital resources that could be used for other, more important things, like ensuring clean drinking water in Lagos or flying me first class to yet another European press preview for a car that I will also promise to hate. It’s not just me. We all hate cars here at this car website. It’s quite logical.
What’s not to like about cars? Well, cars are built and designed by extremely privileged people who never, ever, consult me, Socialist Unit Z/28, on what they should cost or what colors they should be available in. They are then sold to rich people who are the absolute worst, because only rich people buy new cars. Why can’t factories just make used cars, like the ones I buy? How hard can it be to just build a car that already has 173,255 miles on it, a rust hole in the passenger door, and a sagging headliner? Isn’t that what Singer basically does? These automakers need to get their acts together.
A notice to readers: Comments on new Hagerty articles have been disabled due to technical issues since July 29th. Don’t worry, the comments are coming back soon, and when they do, we’ll have a contest or giveaway to reward our readers for their patience. Never stop driving! — Jack Baruth
Also, the seats are always really small and pinchy, which is very fascist.
I didn’t want to review the 2024 Shelby GT-e, but Ford said that all reviewers should have racing or track experience due to the high performance potential of the vehicle. Here’s why that’s a problem: Calling something “high performance” is inherently exclusionary, implying as it does that “low performance” is something that we should be ashamed of. My opinion is that “high performance” cars should be ballasted until they are no faster than low performance cars. I got this idea listening to a podcast called Harrison Bergman, which is about a socialist hero named Diana Moon Glampers who has to deal with two evil fascists at a dance recital. Well let me tell you that she certainly deals with them. She is my new hero!
Ford didn’t think that anybody at Junklopy had track or racing experience, but they’re wrong; I have watched a lot of races and stood next to a lot of tracks. I was even scheduled to be a race track passenger in a car once, at a ride-and-drive for Toyota’s new diesel Highlander, but I had a panic attack before I could actually be taken out onto the track and I ended up watching it from a very comfortable ambulance bed. (My ride-along review of the Transit 350HD can be found elsewhere on this site.) So as our website’s most track-experienced person, I was a natural to attend this press preview, which took place at the racetrack that used to be Sears Point and then became Infineon and then turned into Sonoma Raceway and is now called “Amazon Prime Country Club”, or APCC for short.
As you know, the current Mach-e is a Good Ferd. (We write things like “Good Ferd” because it’s fun and cool to make up your own names for the automakers.) It is actually Best Ferd because it doesn’t use any fossil fuels, being magically powered by the sun using “solar panels” which grow naturally in certain parts of China. But Ford wants the Mach-e to be the fastest electric car, a title that is currently held by the Tesla Model S Plaid. The Plaid, built by Elon Musk, my least favorite person, has about 1000 horsepower and does the quarter-mile in about 9.2 seconds.
(Check my Twitter to find out how much smarter I am than Elon. I have a lot of witty things to say about all his failures. If I wanted to, I could absolutely make a better car than Elon. And I could go to space any time I wanted to, using common household items.)
The new Shelby GT-e improves upon the Mach-e GT, which has 480 horsepower, by effectively doubling the size and power of everything. The double-size battery pack couples with new uprated motors to deliver 960 horsepower. The requirements of housing and cooling the extra hardware mean this is a two-seat Mustang, just like a Boss 302 Laguna Seca. Fixed-caliper brakes front and rear are paired with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 3 tires to reduce braking distances.
Inside, it’s nothing but color-coordinated fake suede and Cobra emblems. During the press preview, one of the older autowriters asked if it was fair to call this a “Shelby”, since there is no evidence that Shelby himself was ever very excited about this kind of car. I waited until they left to use the bathroom, then I Tweeted “OK BOOMER LOL!” which all my friends thought was very funny, and certainly showed that guy.
Ford told us that this electric Shelby can run the quarter-mile in 9.1 seconds, and they used APCC’s dragstrip to show us a professional driver doing that. When it was my turn, I got really anxious and they had to put an oxygen mask on me for a couple of hours. I didn’t want to move during this time so it did affect other peoples’ chance to drive the car, which didn’t really bother me, because they are always free to come to this site and read the best impressions. Finally, it was time to actually do a dragstrip run. I prepared for this by Tweeting a few times. Then I got frightened at the extremely claustrophobic and tiny interior of the Mach-e and had to get out of the car. Happily, one of my best friends in the word, Spaniel Felson, was there on a freelance contract, and he agreed to do the dragstrip for me.
Unfortunately for Spaniel, I tagged him in my next Tweet, the notification of which caused him to be distracted halfway down the dragstrip and “yeet” himself into the concrete stands on the far side of the race track. He’s totally fine! But that’s the third Mustang he’s totaled this year. I really like his work.
What do I think about this Shelby? I think you should do something more responsible, like riding mass transit, using the bus, or buying twelve junkers to adorn the lawn of your shack like a artistically meritless version of the “Cadillac Ranch”. But if you absolutely have to have a toxically masculine electric car, this is much better than Teslas, which are really bad. Take my word for it.
Disclaimer: Ford wanted us to drive the GT-e so badly they paid for me to fly to San Francisco, and then they paid for everyone to get on a new flight after I panicked and demanded that the plane land IMMEDIATELY, and then they paid for someone to come out and drive me the rest of the way in a limo that only had four bags of Cheetos in it, which seems kind of cheap on their part.
