In the latest episode of Top Gear, Richard Hammon decides to revisit the Ford Shelby GT500 that the British motoring show tested late last year. Hammond brought along his own classic Shelby GT390. Top Gear is famous for bashing the U.S. ware at every opportunity, and the GT500 again takes a hit for having a suspension that can’t handle the car’s power.
However, when Hammond wheels out a portable chassis dyno to accurately measure the GT500’s horsepower, he seems surprised to learn that the car produces 447 horsepower. Of course, that’s 447 wheel horsepower, meaning the horsepower is being measured at the wheel where parasitic drivetrain losses are in effect and reduce the manufacturer’s flywheel horsepower rating a good 10 to 20%.
In fact, if you factor in a 10% drivetrain loss on Ford’s flywheel horsepower rating of 500, you get 450 wheel horsepower, which is pretty darn close to the 447 achieved by Hammond’s “rolling road”. Yet for some unexplainable reason Hammond and his comparitavely giant co-host, Jeremy Clarkson, ding the GT500 for producing 53 less horsepower than advertised. Viewers are not convinced with this and beleive that it can be mis-leading to people who are not aware of the difference between horsepower ratings at the wheel and the flywheel.
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