OREANDA-NEWS. September 01, 2015. While the all-new Shelby® GT350 and GT350R Mustangs stream down the production line at Flat Rock Assembly Plant, the results are coming in: These all-new Ford Performance cars are wowing auto reviewers not only across the U.S., but around the world. 

Car and Driver’s Aaron Robinson was skeptical prior to hopping into the GT350, but that doubt was thrown out the window as soon as the vehicle roared to life at Laguna Seca?.

“Our natural skepticism, honed to a katana’s twinkle by years of Shelbys with skull-rattling rides and plodding dynamics, marched proudly into the cockpit of the new GT350,” Robinson writes, “whereupon it died instantly on the car’s red start button. Vaa-ROOOOOMpapapapapapa!!!! 

“First corner and first impressions: tight, tied-down, stable, maybe a little bit of push but, hey, the car’s cold and a bit heavy,” he continued. “Wind it out — wait, where’s the redline? Nowhere. It doesn’t exist! The sucker just keeps straining, keeps revving, keeps swelling with a glorious brassy, unmuffled, rhapsodic roar.” 

Jalopnik’s David Tracy rode in a GT350R in late July, and even the passenger experience was memorable:

“The 2016 Shelby GT350 is truly a special beast,” he writes. “The flat-plane-crankshaft-having 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V8 is the Mount Vesuvius of engines, powerfully erupting with a slight touch of the skinny pedal. 

“It’s always hard to gauge a car’s abilities just from the passenger’s seat. But in a car this visceral, a car this stonkingly loud and powerful, you realize real quickly what it’s capable of.” 

Top Gear’s reviewers stressed that to get the full Shelby experience, interested gearheads should go with the GT350R — if they can get their hands on one.

“Cars like this don’t come along very often — and never for just \\$64,000 — so you owe it to yourself to at least have a go in one. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.” 

The GT350’s beefy powerplant is getting recognition by reviewers as well.

“The new rev-happy 5.2-liter V8 in the Mustang Shelby GT350 is one of the most compelling reasons to visit a Ford dealership in 2016,” writes Mike Sutton of Car and Driver. “Code-named Voodoo and sharing its basic architecture with the Mustang GT’s 435-horsepower, 5.0-liter Coyote engine, this new powerplant is an altogether wilder animal, producing 526 horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 429 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,750. Camaro Z/28s, beware.”