SHELBY: THE TEXAS CONNECTION
Already embedded in the Ford Motor Company via his Ford-powered Cobras and work on the GT40 race car, Texan Carroll Shelby was the natural port of call in 1965 when the Blue Oval wanted to produce a hotter variant of the Mustang to compete against Chevrolet’s Corvette in Sports Car Club of America racing.
Shelby moved from his workshop in Venice, LA, to a hangar at nearby LAX airport to produce the new GT350. It had 306bhp and less weight, while handling was improved via extra bracing, a thicker front anti-roll bar, adjustable Koni dampers and reworked geometry.
A more refined GT350 arrived in 1966, including 1002 sold to rental company Hertz, mostly in black and gold (above right), although some were standard colours. The entire Mustang range was restyled for 1967 when the 428cu in GT500 joined the line-up alongside the GT350, but as Shelby’s lease at LAX came up and he became increasingly disillusioned with the model for its weight and refinement, Ford took production back to Michigan in 1968. The Shelby GT350 and GT500 (later GT500 KR, above) survived two more years as the Mustang was rebodied once again, but the models became less popular as other variants in the Mustang range overtook them. The agreement with Shelby ended, but not before Ford had bought the Cobra name for itself.
With the retro-styled fifth-generation model in the works, Ford revived the Shelby deal 33 years later, and the first new Shelbys to break cover were 500 cars sold to Hertz in 2006, as the GT-H. These would form the basis for the 2007 Shelby GT, essentially a sporty top trim in the Mustang range. The real revival was the GT500 released in the same year, a supercharged 500bhp monster that topped the line-up and offered supercar power at a bargain price.
Finally, the sixthgeneration Mustang, with its much-improved handling, was the starting point for a new Shelby GT350 in 2015 (below). With it, Ford created a Mustang that could once again match the Corvette around a race circuit. A new GT500 replaced that in 2020, bringing supercharging back into the mix for its two-year run before the sixth-generation model bowed out. With a new Mustang just released, no Shelby variant has yet been announced, but you would be foolish to bet against it.