The current Mustang GT and Shelby GT500 are the quickest, fastest Mustangs ever offered. For enthusiasts who want to go even faster and race their Mustangs, Ford is building ready-to-race models.

The Ford Mustang, through all its generations over the past 45 years, has led an illustrious competition career in both road racing and drag racing. A racing Mustang – as with just about any car – requires a huge amount of work, time and money to modify properly. A few years ago, Ford Racing developed a program to develop, build and sell ready-to-race Mustangs that would help enthusiasts get onto the track and across the finish line a whole lot easier than ever before.

The resulting “turnkey” racing packages are ready to race with minimal preparation work. The opportunity to buy a winning combination right from the factory is a dream come true for Mustang buffs with the itch for competition. Here’s a look at two of the most popular packages.

For road racers, Ford began offering the Mustang FR500S a few years ago and still has some available. The car was developed for the Mustang Challenge, a professional racing series sanctioned by the Grand American Road Racing Association (Grand Am). The Mustang Challenge is a support series for eight major professional road racing events across North America. That means the Mustang Challenge races take place before the headline race. It’s real road racing with a competitive point structure and generous purses. Because the cars are all built identically, the series truly showcases driver ability in high-profile racing events.

The Mustang FR500S racecar is manufactured in the same Michigan facility that builds street-legal Mustangs. The Mustang Challenge racer, which has an MSRP of $75,000, features the Mustang GT’s 4.6-liter production V8 engine and a variety of Ford Racing performance parts for track driving.

You can order the car through a Ford dealer or Miller Motorsports Park in Utah, which worked with Ford Racing to develop it. The car is delivered in race-ready condition, complete with a roll cage, racing seat and safety harnesses, a race data acquisition system and even a timing and scoring transponder. The initial production run included 77 cars. Some are still available, according to Ford.

For drag racers, the Mustang Cobra Jet offers a ready-to-race alternative to spending the hundreds of hours needed to build a competitive National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Stock Eliminator racer. The name itself is legendary among Mustang buffs. Ford offered a run of 50 specially built Mustang Cobra Jet drag racecars for the 1968 drag racing season.

After winning the Stock Eliminator category at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, California, the 428 Cobra Jet engine established itself as a force to be reckoned with in street Mustangs as well. Ford would build some 14,000 Mustangs powered by that engine through 1970.

Flash forward 40 years, and Ford is again building Cobra Jet Mustangs – known as the FR500CJ. Even better, just like its namesake, a new Cobra Jet Mustang won its first race, taking Stock Eliminator honors at the NHRA Winternationals earlier this year.

The ready-to-race Cobra Jet Mustang is built to meet all NHRA class rules. It’s powered by a Ford Racing-built supercharged 5.4-liter V8 rated at 425 hp, and getting 700 hp is possible with relatively simple (and race-legal) tweaks. Non-essential weight and interior features are deleted at the factory. You have a choice of a six-speed manual transmission or a race-prepped automatic.

The first run of 2008 Cobra Jet Mustangs sold out (at $69,900 each, ready to race). Ford is now accepting orders for the 2010 model. Like the FR500S road racecar, the FR500CJ drag race model is built in the Mustang factory in Michigan. Neither car is street legal, of course.

You can also build your own Mustang FR500CJ following Ford’s assembly instructions and parts lists. Ford estimates the parts needed for converting a street Mustang (2005 and up) would cost about $40,000. All parts are available from the Ford Racing catalogue – the engine alone costs about $19,000.

For Mustang fans with a desire to race, though, the chance to go into a Ford dealer and order a ready-to-race Mustang is the way to go.