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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 9
– Curt Vogt
I was in high school in 1975 when
I saw my first Shelby. It was an Aca-
pulco Blue 1967 GT500 with tuck-and-
roll upholstery and a 427 engine with
a roller cam. At the time it was
painted gold and one of the first things
you saw when it came down the road
were the Doug Thorley headers which
hung down and wrapped under the oil
pan. The car was two towns over and
was already a local legend when I was
in high school. It was a street racer
and was the fastest car around. It ran
5.13 gears with a Detroit Locker with
slicks and was the first car I ever saw
that could pull the front wheels off the
ground. The guy who owned it was a
mechanic at a local shop and bus
driver for the high school I was attend-
ing. My older brother eventually
bought a ‘67 GT390 Mustang from
him.
I lost contact with the car for sev-
eral years but then one day it was sit-
ting under a tree at the edge of a road
a few miles away with a “For Sale”
sign on the windshield. Before I could
it was sold. I was familiar with the guy
who bought it. With big dreams he ea-
gerly tore it apart but eventually ran
out of both enthusiasm and money. To
pay for some of the needed work the
427 engine was sold and a tired 289
was dropped in to keep the car mobile.
I have no idea what happened to the
427 engine..
The car also got a cheapo MAACO
paint job and was then purchased by
a guy who worked at a local Honda
motorcycle dealership. When he got
tired of the project in 1983, I commit-
ted to buy the car. The serial number
was #67400F0A02394 and that didn’t
mean much at the time, except to
prove it was a real Shelby. At that time
I was a newlywed and already owned
two Shelbys – a ‘65 and a ‘68 KR con-
vertible. I had taken possession of the
GT500 but had yet to pay for it. Before
I could come up with the money
(which wasn’t all that much) the seller
took it back and sold it to someone
else. In 1988, while following up a lead
on a ‘67 GT500 for sale, the car sur-
faced again. It was still a partially-
disassembled project car and I couldn’t
help myself. I bought it again.
I’ve had it ever since, collecting
parts here and there, and sitting in the
back of my shop with a lot of other
projects and cars ahead of it in line.
The body is now more or less complete
but I’m torn between restoring back to
original specifications or putting it
back the way I remembered it from
high school. I have a 427 I could drop
in and the original tuck-and-roll inte-
rior would be easy to get done. I was
The SHELBY AMERICAN
thinking of maybe a twin-Paxton set-
up, but since I’ve already done that to
a customer’s car it’s not much of a
challenge. I could massage the shock
towers and squeeze in a 427 SOHC
that I have laying around not doing
anything.
Since this car is never going to
leave my hands again this project
presently has a low priority. There’s a
lot of stuff ahead of it but after all this
time I’ll never sell it because it was the
Holy Grail to me in high school. Even-
tually I’ll probably give it to my son.
It’s been through a half dozen owners
since 1973 but it’s never been more
than 30 miles away.
#2394 waits in limbo while Vogt tries to de-
cide if the car should be put back to origi-
nal or recreated as the 427 street racer it
was when he first saw it.