Dearborn Fire Department cuts up new-looking GT500 for training
Former test mule likely not road-legal anyway
You’ve probably seen firefighters cutting up cars for training before, but if you haven’t seen the cars (or their remains), they’re usually cutting up cars that were crusher-bound anyway. Decades-old cars with as much rust as sheetmetal (if you’re in the salt belt) or loaded with dents, dings, and an engine that’s not about to crank over. When you’re the fire department in Dearborn, MI, though, things can get a little more interesting. Which is why they’re chopping up a year-old 760 hp Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.
It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye, seeing the 2020 GT500 and its supercharged V8 cut to ribbons. Especially since this one hadn’t been in a crash and looked nearly factory fresh before they started.
Your Dearborn Firefighters train daily. This week we trained on vehicle extrication. It almost broke our hearts to cut…
Posted by Dearborn Fire Department on Friday, October 16, 2020
But this car wasn’t new. It was a test vehicle, and that means it was probably used for development and testing. Maybe emissions or durability runs or testing out suspension calibrations, likely driven exclusively ad Ford’s test centre which happens to also be located in Dearborn. In any case, that usually means a car isn’t road legal and can’t be sold. So Dearborn FB got a training treat that brought a tear to their eyes.
The FD said thanks to Dennis Lark and Ford for the opportunity to chop up this classic, and if that brings you down a bit, then just remember that the skills learned and freshened from this poor Mustang’s trip to the glue factory could help save a life following a collision involving some other model of vehicle down the road.
