Saturday, March 31, 2012

Used Shelby GT350s selling for more than brand new ones

2011 Shelby GT350

The Shelby GT350 is one of the most expensive Mustangs on the market today. Pricing for a 2012 model starts at $57,499 and can go up to nearly $90,000 when you add on the supercharger, big brake kit, watts-link suspension and the other bells and whistles. While the sticker price might be a shock for some, what’s really surprising is that used Shelby GT350s are selling for even more than new ones.

“We’ve got guys out there with GT350s and even Super Snakes that are selling for more than they’ve got in them,” we were told by Gary Patterson, Shelby’s VP of Operations. “They’re not selling a lot of them – most people are keeping them and enjoying them and having a blast – but there’s not a whole lot of cars today that you can buy brand new off the showroom floor that don’t depreciate significantly. Several GT350 owners that I’ve talked to recently, who because of financial issues have needed to sell their cars, have actually reported back that they’ve made money on them.”

Patterson tells us that the used GT350s were sold for anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 more than what the owners originally paid for them.

Part of the reason for the high demand is that production of the GT350 is fairly limited. Less than 200 were produced for 2011, and a fairly similar amount have been scheduled to be built for the 2012 model year. “That’s certainly why the value of those cars continues to be high,” Patterson told us. “These aren’t mass produced cars.” He did stress, however, that those wanting a new GT350 won’t have to wait an excessive amount of time. “There is a little bit of a waiting list, but it’s not significant. The GT350 is probably six months out, the Super Snake is 60-90 days, and the new GTS is about 40 days, so it’s not a significant wait in most cases.”