Carroll Shelby builds GT350s from 2011 Ford Mustang GTs

(from USA Today)

 

Among muscle-car fans, Mustang’s original Shelby GT350 holds a special place in history as the premier powerful, track-hugging, custom Ford pony car of the late 1960s.

Now Carroll Shelby, who just turned 87, is modifying the latest high-powered 2011 Ford Mustang GT, due on sale this spring, to create a new version of the GT350, which was formally unveiled Monday night at the opening gala for the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The new car is being released on the 45th anniversary of the original GT350, and only about 2,200 of them will be produced over the next two years.

The new GT350 plays heavily on nostalgia and is aimed straight at “old Baby Boomers” who remember the original, Shelby says. “They love the performance and they will stick with it.”

Even better, there is a higher likelihood than with younger Shelby fans that Boomers can afford it. To get one, buyers first have to purchase a new, stock 2011 Mustang GT from Ford, which is expected to be priced at $30,000. Then they will need to write a check to Shelby American for an additional $33,995 to pay for morphing the car into a GT350.

About 100 Shelby fans have already lined up to buy one, says Amy Boylan, president of Shelby American car customizing operation headquartered next to a racetrack in Las Vegas. It proves how strongly memories remain about the original.

“The legend lives!” says Tom duPont, publisher of the duPont Registry, a sales guide of classic and collectible cars, and owner of more than dozen cars.

“It is the Holy Grail of all Shelbys,” Boylan says about the original. Never mind that there are plenty of others now modifying Mustangs in the custom-car world. “When you look at a sea of Mustangs, there are only so many people who can build Mustangs that have heritage.”

There’s no mistaking the new GT350’s heritage. While Ford sells its own GT500 with Cobra badges under license from Shelby, the GT350 will be very different. Body modifications to the front and rear of the 2011 version make it appear like the original. And as in 1965, the 2011 GT350 is white with blue “Le Mans stripes.” Carroll Shelby won the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race in France in 1959.

The 412-horsepower Ford 5.0-liter engine for 2011 will be modified for GT350 to give it upwards of 500 horsepower. (The original GT350 had a 289-cubic-inch V-8, producing 350 horsepower.) All will have a six-speed manual transmission, centered rear exhaust, functional scoops and racing brakes.

The suspension gets racing springs, struts, sway bars and camber plates. To finish it off, there are 19-inch wheels and extra-grippy tires.

“This car is our most radically designed,” Boylan says. “We don’t take it apart and slap (new parts) on. We’ve done a complete body change.”

Shelby American, which changed its name in December from Shelby Automobiles, has been modifying Mustangs for years.

“I still have the passion to do it, but sometimes I get discouraged with interference from lawyers and accountants,” says Shelby, who says he plans to keep working as long as he can.

A couple of years ago, the company modified the previous-generation Mustang into a heritage edition for Hertz, the GT-H. Shelby has since produced versions of his Super Snake models.

The company also makes recreations of the Cobra sports car, another model from Shelby’s heyday nearly a half-century ago. “Any opportunity Carroll Shelby has to make a buck on his heritage, he’ll take. But we’re the beneficiaries,” said duPont. He says he thinks the GT350 will succeed mostly because it will be fun to drive, putting aside any value as a collectible.

But Dave Kinney, editor of Hagerty’s Cars That Matter, a pricing guide to collectible cars, says the combination of Mustangs and Carroll Shelby may not be “perceived as significant right away” but could be “significant in the future.”

Indeed, a prototype for the 1965 Shelby GT350, the 10th ever built, is going on the Gooding & Co. auction block in Scottsdale this week, where it could fetch $200,000.

“Those cars were spectacular,” says Steve Davis, president of Barrett-Jackson, about the original. “They are one of the most desirable collector cars in the world.”