The folks at Lethal Performance say this 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 is the quickest of its kind in the world. To prove it, they brought us this video, complete with foreboding Hans Zimmer-eqsue music, slow camera pans over the car, and of course, some insane drag strip launches.

Like a chainsaw made of bacon, the 2013 Shelby GT500 is magnificently batshit and distinctly American. In honor of the late Carroll Shelby, Ford, Friends of Carroll and Shelby American just released a one-off 850-hp version of the GT500 at Pebble Beach.

If you had to pick two extremes for a scale of automotive badassery, you could reasonably peg the low end of the scale with the yawn-generating Chevy Optra, and the high end with a Mustang-based Shelby GT500. That would provide two extremes pretty much anyone could understand. Which is why Big Daddy Custom's conversion …

Clearly the stock 662 horsepower in the Shelby GT500 is woefully inadequate. Lethal Performance, with a help from a handful of shops, took their Shelby up to 763.9 rear-wheel horsepower and blew a 9.77 quarter-mile pass at 148.8 miles per hour.

We share a common language, a deep pop-cultural connection and the stormy heritage of two petulant brothers, but Yanks and Brits don't always see eye-to-eye on cars. No doubt we've got a lot invested in mega horsepower machines that can devour ribbons of interstate. But can we build sports cars a European could…

662 HP! The 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is, let's face it, an absolutely insane vehicle. An absurd amount of power, a ludicrous amount of engineering, and a horsepower-to-money ratio that can only be measured on the metric batshit scale. Weirdly, my biggest complaint is how utterly sane it feels.

Stories of ultra-rare muscle cars sitting in barns are truly the car person's equivalent of "the fish that got away". A few years, a hazy memory or just a desire for a good story have all too often put a Hemi under the hood of a dusty small block Barracuda or turned an average rot box Camaro into a ZL1.

Alex Kostiouk snapped this picture of a 1967 Shelby GT500 this weekend. It's a fine example of American Muscle, American Roads and Americana. RIP Carroll.

A 33-year-old Utah woman crashed her 2009 Shelby GT500 with such force last month that the roof disintegrated, the front suspension detached, and the engine flew out of the car. The big V8 was then struck by an Acura causing another accident. Everyone survived.

What happens when you're wealthy and buy your new trophy stripper girlfriend a car she can't handle? This money bags stripper hound found out, and his exotic dancer's ragged out 2011 Mustang GT 500 was seen in the dealer's lot the morning after she was handed the keys, tattered tires and all.