Revology 1967 Shelby GT500 review: the bar for resto Mustangs just got much, much higher Reviews 2025

Top Gear

17 hours ago

Bite your cynical alter ego's tongue, please. This is a 1967 Shelby GT500, built by the fine folks of Revology Cars, which means it's not just another restomod slapped together to make a quick buck off of people who refer to all classic Mustangs as 'an Eleanor'. Does it now?
Indeed. If you recall our last run-around with a Revology Mustang, there was much bristling around the label 'restomod' from company founder and CEO Tom Scarpello due to the association the term has with the roughshod junk flooding the Mustang market.
After an exhaustive deep dive into how Revology makes its products – including a walkthrough of its Florida facility – we're here to tell you that is very much not the case here. Where's Revology at these days?
Physically, in Orlando, Florida. But business-wise, they're in a good place. Revology now lives under the umbrella of Knighthead Capital Management, which doesn't mean much to the average Joe on its own, but is relevant here because Knighthead also has a controlling stake in Singer, the famous Porsche restoration company.
Though the two companies operate independently, to be able to call Revology 'the Singer of Mustangs' is worth the association alone. It's a great shorthand for the level of quality Scarpello and crew are committed to with their offerings. Enough business talk. Power! Speed!
Yes! This Shelby GT500 is fitted with a Ford/Roush 5.0-liter supercharged V8 that screws up 710hp and lays it all down to the rears by way of a six-speed manual. You can hear it screaming out the back of the Borla exhaust Revology had tuned specifically for this car and it sounds as powerful as it feels.
It doesn't feel right to simply say 'pretty good' without talking about build quality first, and my summary is barely going to do the process justice.
Stick with us, this is cool. Let's start by saying Revology builds its cars like an OEM, which was evident throughout a tour of what is basically its mini assembly plant. There is no 'let's take an old Mustang and shove aftermarket bits' here, there is an agonizing design and build process that has a legacy automaker's level of scrutiny throughout each stage, most of it unsexy but no less fascinating. I sat through a 30-minute presentation about making a better powered window, and was transfixed by the level of importance this and other oft-overlooked components receive.
Returning to the Shelby, this GT500 benefits from a number of updates made to the recent batch of Mustangs, including a revised assembly process that now includes the use of structural adhesives to improve rigidity.
As I climb in, Scarpello is eager to point out a number of upgrades. The seats? New and sourced from the Mazda MX-5, because the answer is always Miata. Even in other cars, apparently. They're just a better fit, physically and thematically, than what the aftermarket offers. Pedal geometry adjustments and tweaks to the gearbox have been made, which Scarpello points out as a fix to one of the observations I made in the 'Bullitt' Mustang I drove before.