Why the New Mustang’s Racing Stripes Are so Expensive

The new Mustang Shelby GT500 is available for order for late 2019 deliveries. Ford’s offering some nice add-in packages to enhance your purchase, but one may surprise you a bit. The iconic racing stripes are available for special order. Great, but what’s the catch?

Well, the catch is the package being offered happens to be for $10,000. Yes, you’re reading that right. The stripes cost over 10% of the Mustang’s base price. This has many people scratching their heads in disbelief. Is this for real? Why such a high price for some simple racing stripes?

Why are the Mustang racing stripes so expensive?

To answer that question, Car and driver reached out to Ford to find out for themselves, and reported that the special order option will be, “hand-prepped, painted, and clear coated”.

So, Ford will have those racing stripes painted on by human hands and not machine cut like the vinyl stripes it had offered for the GT350. Also, because of the process involved, Ford will have a limited production capacity available.

While you can still order the vinyl version of the stripes, for around a thousand, it won’t give you the same quality that a hand-painted job would. If you remember, a previous version of the GT350 caused some complaints that the decals were bubbling, peeling and coming off after being on for less than a year.

That caused the exterior to have a marred appearance. With the hand-painted job, there won’t be any tearing of the stripes or bubbling under the paint.

What’s up with the racing stripes, anyway?

These stripes originated from racing cars back in the 1950s. Briggs Cunningham, who built racers, took his white race cars and painted blue stripes up the hood, over the top, and the back.

This differentiated his racing collection of cars from others on the track. The style became iconic for racing, and people instantly would recognize one of his white racers, just by the blue stripe design. Peter Brock, a fan of Cunningham’s cars would use the same type of design for the Mustang Shelby in the 1960s.

Today, racing stripes on Mustangs continue to be popular. The purpose of the stripes are not so much to stand out from other cars, but because these stripes represent speed, at least in appearance.

Of course, the Mustang’s engine has plenty of power and speed on its own. But by adding stripes, you give it a whole new race car look. People can just look at it, and they’ll start thinking speed.

What other options is Ford offering for the 2020 Shelby GT500?

Ford offers a couple more packages to enhance your Mustang experience. The carbon fiber track pack will get you 20-inch carbon fiber wheels, Michelin sport tires, no rear seat, and exposed carbon fiber dashboard and track wing. Not to mention, you can also get Recaro leather-trimmed seats, and wheel locks. All that will add about $18,000 to the base price of the GT500.

Plan to use the Mustang as your daily drive? Add a technology package for about $3,000 and get a 12-speaker sound system, heated side mirrors, door-mounted puddle lamps, 8.0-inch infotainment screen, and blind-spot monitors. For $1,500 more, you can add a handling package that gets you splitter wickers, and gurney flap.

The 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500 looks like it won’t disappoint. For that race car appearance, adding stripes in blue, black, or white is sure to get you noticed on the street. If you can spare that extra $10,000, go for the special hand-painted package. This will ensure the exterior’s design lasts as long as you have the car in your possession.