Ford Authority: We talked about the stripes on the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 back in late August when word first surfaced that the painted stripes would cost $10,000. The cost of the stripes was confirmed recently when the 2020 GT500 configurator went live. We all wondered why the stripes cost so much, and Ford has now offered an answer.
The reason the painted stripes cost $10,000, and the vinyl stripes cost $1,000 is pretty straight forward. Ford has said that the reason is that the painted stripes are done by hand. The stripe job is hand-prepped, painted, and then clear-coated. The “specialized nature” of the hand painting process means that Ford has a “very limited production capacity” to be able to paint these stripes on by hand.
Any Ford Mustang owner can tell you that vinyl stripes are hard to deal with. Having personally owned a 2012 Boss 302, the vinyl stripes make waxing the car a major pain, and the stripes often start to crack and peel over the years. Those $10,000 painted on stripes are under the clear coat and will look just as good down the road as they do on the delivery day for the 2020 GT500.
Being under the clearcoat also means as the car gets scratched from use, you can take it to a detailer and have it buffed back to like new. The painted-on stripes can be had in the same three colors as the vinyl stripes – black, white, and blue. We still want a Grabber Lime with painted on black stripes, but the $10,000 is hard to swallow even though we like the idea of ease of care and permanence over time.
Source: Ford Authority
