MG XPower SV vs Shelby Mustang GT: transatlantic battle

By Charlie Calderwood

| 8 Jul 2025

Classic & Sports Car – MG XPower SV vs Shelby Mustang GT: transatlantic battle

The idea of taking the simple, powerful, reliable powertrain from an American muscle car and dropping it into a vehicle that is a bit more special is nothing new.

Indeed, De Tomaso – which created the ancestor of the MG XPower SV pictured here – was one of the pioneers of the art.

Brits had done it, too, from Jensen to Bristol, Gordon-Keeble to AC.

For MG in the mid-noughties, Ford’s Modular V8 was the key to a new range-topping halo car the marque had never known before.

MG’s XPower SV offered a thrilling new deployment of Ford’s Modular V8

But the Blue Oval itself wasn’t blind to the possibilities of this unit either, and in 2007 resurrected its connection with Shelby to offer a performance Mustang using the same engine family: the Shelby GT.

Few cars can boast a development history quite as long and tortured as the XPower ‘Sport Veloce’.

Had it taken any longer, the car would likely have never seen the light of day at all.

Only three were sold before MG Rover went into administration in April ’05; the remaining 83 were bought from the company’s wreckage or, as is the case with this 2007 car, finished off by classic car dealer Oakfields to use up stock.

Shelby Automotive rekindled its relationship with Ford for this modified Mustang

The XPower’s story begins a thousand miles, two companies and nearly a decade removed from the car that finally appeared wearing an MG badge.

De Tomaso kick-started the project as an Italian equivalent to the TVR Griffith, unveiling a Marcello Gandini-designed show car named the Biguá at the 1996 Geneva motor show.

Reviving the more evocative Mangusta moniker for production, the project was soon taken over by De Tomaso’s main investor, Bruce Qvale, and became the Qvale Mangusta.

Built on a steel chassis and clothed in plastic bodywork, the Qvale performed and handled well, but its styling proved divisive and only 284 were built from 1999-2002.

The MG XPower SV’s chassis and body were assembled in Italy, but the carbonfibre body panels came from the UK

Upon hearing the news of the Phoenix Consortium’s buyout of MG Rover in 2001, Qvale approached the newly independent company about the prospect of a distribution deal for his car.

Instead, MG Rover saw a competent car already homologated for sale in the USA available at a bargain price, and bought out Qvale in 2002, gaining both the car and its production facility.

MG Rover’s consultant design director, Peter Stevens, resisted early ideas of rebadging the existing Mangusta as an MG, telling Classic & Sports Car in 2017 that the car “looked like a squashed toad”.

Not all MG XPower SVs have a fixed rear wing

Instead, Stevens was given the job of replacing the Mangusta’s body with an MG design built from carbonfibre.

The choice of material not only endowed the car with lower weight, but also gave it extra prestige and the potential for an easy route to motorsport.

Both, the Phoenix Consortium thought, would aid MG Rover’s long-term plan to find a cross-venture with another manufacturer.

Stevens created a body design that maintained all the fixed points of the homologated Mangusta, including – much to his chagrin – the windscreen, but cut a very different figure to the Italian car.

MG used a two-cam Ford V8 in the Rover 75-based ZT 260 and a quad-cam version for the XPower SV

An MG TF-influenced snout gives it some corporate resemblance, but the defining styling feature of the XPower is its bulging wheelarches, resulting in a drastically more aggressive appearance than its Mangusta progenitor.

Surfaced in the blocky style of the period, it was the only MG Rover product that didn’t look tied to a bodyshell from the 1990s.

Details such as its side gills, Fiat Coupé-sourced circular rear lights and round, chrome-tipped exhausts look painfully of its era today, but were very much on trend at the time.

Arriving at almost exactly the same moment as the XPower was a new version of the car from which it sourced its drivetrain: Ford’s fifth-generation S196 Mustang.

Ford owns the Cobra logo; it acquired the name when its previous deal with Shelby ended in 1970

It also tapped into the trends of the day, but not in the contemporary style of the XPower, instead following the wave of retro designs that had begun at the start of the decade with the new Volkswagen Beetle and BMW MINI.

Despite being far from the first to that party in 2004, Ford caught a wind that blew strongly and leant into it wholeheartedly.

Even those normally not partial to a Mustang couldn’t ignore just how good the car looked and, in less adorned trim at least, it has proved the more timeless design with its simple detailing, familiar cues and handsome proportions.

The previous-generation Mustang had made it clear to Ford, however, that increased profitability in its coupé lay not in chasing volume relentlessly, but in higher-priced models.

The Ford Mustang Shelby GT’s performance is surprisingly accessible

The furore around the 2001 Bullitt evocation had demonstrated that, but so, too, did the strong reception to the Mach 1, SVT Cobra and Cobra Terminator editions.

For the new-generation car, Ford had something even greater planned: the return of Shelby.

Shelby’s previous deal with Ford had ended in 1970, the parting of ways including Dearborn making off with the Cobra name for future hot Mustangs.

The consciously retro new Mustang, alongside Shelby’s struggle to fund the Series 1 project, created an opportunity to reunite the two names after more than 30 years.

Offered for just two model years, the Shelby Mustang GT was available only in black or white

Ford’s own Special Vehicles Team (SVT) would lead much of the development rather than Shelby, and almost as soon as the new Mustang was revealed Ford announced the partnership by showing off an early version of the supercharged GT500 at the 2005 New York Auto Show.

That car wouldn’t go on sale until 2007, however, and the first new Shelby models to hit the road were the 500 GT-Hs sold to Hertz in 2006, 40 years after the hire company’s famous ‘rent-a-racer’ tie-up with the Shelby GT350H.

“We have been overwhelmed at the number of people who want to buy a version of the Shelby GT-H,” announced Carroll Shelby later that year as he revealed the new Shelby GT, which largely mirrored the specification of the Hertz cars.

The Ford Mustang’s V8 was tuned to 319bhp in the Shelby GT

The GT here today might look as if it has just driven through a branch of Autozone covered in glue, but only its rear-window louvres are a later addition – everything else is as Shelby sold it: hood scoop, bonnet pins, stripes, side scoops and 18in alloy wheels.

Shelby hadn’t sold out, though: the GT was more than mere window dressing.

The car came with Ford’s ‘Racing Handling Package’ that provided stiffer springs, dampers, anti-roll bars and a strut-tower brace, while the stock gearshifter was replaced with a Hurst short-throw kit.

Under the bonnet, an open-air intake – which looks straight out of a drag racer with its cone filter – a performance exhaust and a retune of the ECU bumped the 24-valve V8 up to 319bhp (from 300bhp), while a shorter rear-axle ratio further improved acceleration.

The Shelby was based on the GT-H, but lost a spoiler and gained the option of a manual transmission, and an ‘off’ button for the traction-control system

Coincidentally, that was almost an identical output to the 320bhp that famed Mustang racer and tuner Roush extracted from the quad-cam 4.6-litre V8 in the MG XPower SV.

When it comes to starting that engine, however, I’m initially drawing a blank.

Turning the key awakens the dash but doesn’t stir the V8, and it’s only after the owner asks “what noise is it making when you push the starter?” that I realise the unmarked steel button sited on the centre console behind the gearlever is the ignition.

With that, the MG fires into life, but it’s an example of how the XPower’s interior feels a bit rushed in places.

The MG XPower SV’s original four-spoke steering wheel has been swapped for an aftermarket Momo here

Although trimmed in luxurious-feeling leather, and quite pleasing in its overall design, the cabin rattles and squeaks, while the olde-worlde chrome ellipsoid door and glovebox handles lifted from the Rover 75 jar with the Halfords accessory catalogue gearknob with its exposed faux boltheads.

The driving position is a bit odd, too: the clutch is closer than the other two pedals, forcing a very bent left leg, while the whole pedalbox is pushed toward the edge of the car.

The Mustang is the opposite. Ergonomically sorted and consistently styled, it’s nonetheless built from suspect plastics throughout.

The three-spoke, leather-bound wheel feels nice in the hand, at least, while the ’60s-inspired dash binnacle, complete with adjustable colour back-lighting, is fun and charismatic.

The MG XPower SV’s exotic shape makes it a real head-turner

Yet beyond the Shelby plaque on the dash and a few chrome bezels, it’s otherwise a sea of pretty scratchy black plastic in the ’Stang – though at least it’s spacious, with usable back seats.

The MG has just a cargo shelf behind the front seats, so it is unsurprising that the Ford feels a significantly bigger car, despite similar external dimensions.

That sense is made more pronounced by the thick pillars around all of the Shelby’s windows.

But this is not a Mustang of old, and the GT is satisfying to hustle down a back-road once you’ve wrapped your head around its size (in reality it is only as wide as a modern BMW M4).

A dashboard plaque helps to lift the Shelby Mustang GT’s fairly drab interior

The steering is satisfying, offering good feedback, weight and precision.

That Panhard-rod rear axle bounces around a bit over mid-corner bumps, which prevents you from carrying every last mph you could want to around a turn, but it suits the Mustang’s general character as a point-and-shoot car, where every bit of manoeuvring is a prelude to deploying its heroic torque and turning up the noise.

It remains predictable and playful the entire time, befitting its role as a gateway V8.

The Shelby’s aggressive nose

As you’d perhaps hope for a carbon-bodied GT with an Italian-designed chassis, the MG is the more precise tool.

Lower in its centre of gravity, its chassis more readily pivots around the driver.

The aftermarket Momo steering wheel fitted to this example no doubt helps with the feeling of agility and it’s quicker to throw around every corner, while the weight it saves over the Mustang gives it a bit of extra throttle response.

Most noticeable when exiting a bend, the MG makes the most of the torque of the 4601cc V8, springing out of turns with real alacrity.

The MG XPower SV’s pronounced side gills

Today 320bhp sounds rather paltry, but the SV is quick even by modern standards.

More of a surprise is that the MG is rather supple, too: firmer than the Mustang, for sure, but not bone-breaking in the manner you might expect of a low-volume, carbon-bodied car.

That said, the SV experience does still feel quite raw, primarily because its lightweight body forgoes proper soundproofing.

Closing the door feels like shutting a garden shed, and every bump creates a thump, followed by a series of rattles and squeaks.

The MG XPower SV’s harnesses and hugging seats

You hear every stone in the wheelarches, and when running over a small branch on the road, you sense you could draw its profile, so accurately it is transmitted into the cabin.

Oddly for a car so lairy-looking, the MG’s traction-control system is annoyingly harsh.

It cuts in at even the first hint of slip, which you can easily mistake as a misfire the first few times it happens.

It can be turned off, of course, but adds to the sense that the MG is not quite a finished product.

The MG XPower SV’s Qvale Mangusta origins are well hidden

Drive the SV hard, though, and it shines.

The engine note, which rises to a real roar that bests even the Mustang in its upper ranges, drowns out the rattles, and you’re concentrating so hard on driving you forget its shortcomings.

But tooling through town on your way to the good roads really doesn’t flatter the XPower.

Much like, perhaps, the TVR that De Tomaso first targeted.

The Shelby Mustang GT’s binnacle colour scheme can be changed at will

The Mustang, meanwhile, is the consummate all-rounder: more comfortable and much more approachable.

You could happily drive the big Ford across the country, when the MG would frustrate you.

The MG XPower SV is arguably the car that took the Ford V8 and put it in the most unusual wrapping.

Its styling is outrageous, its use of carbonfibre high-tech even today, plus it’s the most thrilling down a twisty back-road.

If you’re only going to do 1000 miles a year in your Ford-powered coupé, it’s the one to pick.

The Shelby Mustang GT’s Hurst shifter

But it’s hard to ignore that the Mustang is almost as much fun, and yet has much broader ability.

Some will turn up their noses at the pony car, especially because of its archaic live rear axle, but take a Shelby GT down a favourite road and I’d defy any enthusiast not to return with a smile on their face.

It isn’t sophisticated, but it’s affable, jocose and entertaining all the time.

Images: Jack Harrison

Thanks to: Fairmont Sports & Classics; John Newry of the MGSV-Club

Factfiles

MG XPower SV

Sold/number built 2003-’05 (limited production 2005-’07)/86
Construction steel chassis, carbonfibre body
Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank, 32-valve 4601cc Modular V8, sequential fuel injection
Max power 320bhp @ 6000rpm
Max torque 317lb ft @ 4750rpm
Transmission Tremec five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension independent, by double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers f/r
Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo and ABS
Length 14ft 8in (4480mm)
Width 6ft 3in (1900mm)
Height 4ft 4in (1320mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 6in (2658mm)
Weight 3395lb (1540kg)
0-60mph 5.3 secs
Top speed 165mph
Mpg 24
Price new £65,750
Price now £40-60,000*

Shelby Mustang GT

Sold/number built 2007-’08/7865
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-alloy, sohc-per-bank, 24-valve 4601cc Modular V8, sequential fuel injection
Max power 319bhp @ 6000rpm
Max torque 330lb ft @ 4250rpm
Transmission Tremec five-speed manual, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by MacPherson struts rear live axle, three links, Panhard rod, coil springs, telescopic dampers
Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
Brakes discs, with servo and ABS
Length 15ft 8in (4775mm)
Width 6ft 2in (1877mm)
Height 4ft 7in (1405mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 11in (2720mm)
Weight 3547lb (1609kg)
0-60mph 5.3 secs
Top speed 147mph
Mpg 22
Price new $36,970
Price now £20-45,000*