Messages

This is a great thread!

#589 has 96,000 - bought it 36 years ago with 54,000

Tonight I saw a 2007 GT500 with 113 miles sell for $41K + fees = $45K.  This is a 12 year old brand new car.  Do you suppose the selling owner is crying?  I expect they lost money (assuming they are the original purchaser).  Heck of a deal for the buyer.  IIRC, when these early late model brand new GT500's were sold new, they came with a hefty dealer markup.   Was it $60 to $70 for one of these cars back then?  Crazy.  Drive'm and enjoy them.

Cory

I paid just under $50,000 for my '07 when I bought it, $5000 over MSRP. In the Northwest it seemed like most dealers were charging around $10,000 over so I felt mine was a decent buy at the time. I wanted a car to buy new and never part with. It now has over 50,000 miles on it and is probably worth less than half of what I paid for it, but I'm okay with that. I knew it was going to depreciate, and I never plan on selling it so it doesn't matter. Personally when people were buying these cars thinking they were investments I thought they were nuts. I would have recommended going out and buying a '68 or '69 GT350 or a classic car of some type that wouldn't have been too much more at the time and already had a history of appreciation. At least then they could have driven it and enjoyed it a bit rather than leaving it in the garage and staring at it while it depreciated........

I have the original BK carb for my car, but the PO had removed the dual four barrels and ran a single four intake with the one original carb. The BJ carb and intake was stolen from her garage, so when I bought the car that's all I got. I rounded up the correct intake and found a BJ carb, but it is too early of a date code. I asked a prominent Shelby enthusiast how important the correct date code was on the carb, and he told me he would just have it re-stamped with the proper date code. I chose not to do that......

#589 has the three hole design, but it looks almost like the bracket is kind of a combination of the two shown above. It does not have the bracket that goes all the way from one side to the other, the bracket looks more like the one on the two hole design. Don't know how common that is.....Shelby completion date - 01-11-67

This is true unfortunately. Personally I prefer to see the cars that have not been restored or that have been hidden away for years and have recently surfaced. I also love seeing customized cars because almost everybody restores them to stock these days, but it's understandable. Even just a set of custom wheels on a Shelby is cool to see. That being said, mine looks like it did from the day it was new except for Lemans stripes. I'm thinking a set of Torque Thrusts are in it's future however......I took the ones off my '66 Galaxie several years back and put them on the Shelby and I really liked the looks of it.

My under dash gauges have the same Phillips head screws that yours has,.............

Which ones are you referring to? The once that attach  the bracket to the main body or the ones for the face plate?

The ones that attach the face plate, and I believe they hold the bezels that go around the gauges as well. All of my screws look like the ones in the picture above that shows the two Phillips head screws in the face plate/

My under dash gauges have the same Phillips head screws that yours has, all of my screws are matching, but I have been told that they are not correct. I have owned my car since '82 and had never touched them. That does leave 15 years for previous owners to have changed them, but I would think I would have a combination of slotted and Phillips head screws if that had happened. It would be interesting to know who else has the Phillips head screws in theirs.

So what about the valve covers? Did other early GT500's come with the "Power by Ford" valve covers? I don't have my registry handy. Is this car still out there somewhere?

I've always been curious if this car has been identified and if it is still around. I'm assuming this is a Bronze car, but the color looks closer to Sunlit Gold from 1968 to me. Also wondered about the lack of Shelby valve covers in the photo. I remember that there was speculation that this may have been one of the 390 cars, but then I thought I heard that 390 cars had never actually been authenticated. Anybody know for sure?

Saw this car in Portland Oregon back in the early '80's......

I wanted a GT500 because I had two small block Mustangs at the time and had never owned a big block car. I assumed I was making a mistake investment-wise because they were much more common than the GT350's, so I was surprised over the years that the big block cars were more valuable. I still expect the gap in prices to tighten up as time goes on. Big blocks are harder to work on, use a bit more gas, not as nimble, but there's just something about opening the hood and seeing that massive engine with the dual four barrels that makes it more fun for me that a small block car.

Yes, we bought it in '82 when we were 22 years old. The original owner bought it when he was 22 years old. It is definitely a family member at this point. Still had the black California plates on it and I was able to peel the stickers back to the original one from 1967. The whitewalls were the first thing to go. Couldn't afford to buy new tires after buying the car, so had to live with the same tires with the white walls on the inside for a few years. The next change was Lemans stripes.....Here's a more recent picture.

Took these pictures 36 years ago today.........

Personally I love to see the modified cars. 99% of them (including mine) look like they did when they rolled off the showroom floor with the exception of Lemans stripes that a lot of people add. I really like bright yellow and black on that car, but could never bring myself to do it to a car that is already done to factory specs. To each his own, but it's fun to go to a Shelby show and see an occasional car that doesn't look like all the others IMHO.