Article Highlights:

• The American tuning company has something special cooking
• What’s next for the Shelby Mustang?
• The new Shelby Mustang could get hybrid power

“Performance is our business.” You might recognize the line from Ford vs. Ferrari, but it’s been the motto of Carrol’s tuning company since he was at the helm way back in the early part of the 1900s. Now, there’s going to be a new snake badge on a Ford Mustang. Or so it would seem.

Shelby builds the fastest Mustangs around

The brand has been building faster Mustangs than Ford for, well, longer than some of us have been alive. The Vegas-based tuning company has gotten quite good at it. Remember the GT350R? It put a flat-plane crank in a muscle car long before the Chevrolet Corvette was even thinking about it, and the ‘Stang was all the better for it. What about the utterly insane 2011 Shelby GT350?

That car was a 600+ hp monster that turned gas into tire smoke. Where the current GT350R handles like a Ferrari and looks like a Mustang, the ’11 GT350 was a tire-killing brute. So, with this cryptic teaser from Shelby, we’re really not sure what will roll out the factory doors on December 15th. Hell, it could be another tuned-up Mustang Mach E.

What is this new Ford Mustang?

Well, not really. The shape shown on the brand’s social media is distinctly Ford Mustang. How could it be anything but? The internet is full of rumors, from more grounded ones to the truly wild. We’ll start with the crazy stuff, because who doesn’t love a good grassy knoll theory? We already know the Mustang is getting a hybrid powerplant at some point, and this could be it. However, it’s hard to imagine that Ford would be alright with Shelby debuting the new Mustan’s powerplant for them.

Realistically, we’re looking at one of two things. First: this could be an update to the aging GT350R. The car hasn’t received any major changes in some time, after all. And, with the new Corvette Z06 right around the corner, an update to the only other flat-plane V8 muscle car makes sense. It’s certainly something unique to the rest of the Ford Mustang lineup, and we’d love to see another. Another possibility is a sort of limited run-off.

We’ll know more about the new Mustang in December

Tuning companies and exotic manufacturers have figured out you can make a lot of money by selling limited one-off cars for insane money. Think McLaren Elva. Perhaps Shelby is pulling the same thing with another Ford Mustang-based model. No matter what, Shelby American says we’ll know more on December 15th when the cover comes off the car for the first time. We know one thing: it’s sure to be really, really, fast.