I thought I'd start this thing off with a little background info...my
Mustang career dates back to 1980, a '67 Mustang Coupe and my first
driver s license. Surprise, I'm not 29 years old! By college in
the early/mid-80's, I had discovered at least four things: 1) that
my first car wasn't just any ol' car; 2) that there were ownership
clubs and a national monthly magazine dedicated to this car; 3)
that college -
students learned to bounce quarters off of tables into glasses so
that their buddies would have to drink beer; and 4) what a Shelby
Mustang was. By the late 80's I had bought my second Mustang, a
'67 GT Fastback (see Dec. '05 Pony Tales), been to my first car
show, and began to secretly admire one particular breed of Shelby,
the '68 GT500KR with the 428 Cobra Jet motor. Oh, and I was also
married by then (important in case my wife reads this). In fact,
on our honeymoon in '89, my wife and I end up spending
almost an entire day with a guy who parked in front of his business
a tattered, faded acapulco blue 500KR convertible, complete with
JCWhitney mag wheels and T-shirts fitted over the seats as seat
covers (I can hear Foxworthy now, "You might be a redneck if...").
I think to myself, this is definitely the Mustang I'd like to own
someday...well, hopefully one in a little better shape!
Around this time, prices started climbing rapidly for early convertibles,
Mach 1's, Bosses and Shelby’s,
especially those models with big block power, unfortunately caused
mostly by investors and speculators (not car lovers) reading auction
results from Barrett-Jackson. Therefore, end of dream for young
married guy to buy a Shelby, as even a project car is more than
a house down payment at that time. However, I was blessed with a
Shelby in 1994. but this model required daily feeding and changing
of diapers!
Fast forwarding about fifteen years finds me back in the Vacaville/Fairfield
area where I grew up. enjoying my family, church, friends, and even
my career. I'm also fortunate to live near my parents, brother and
sisters. So how and why did I finally acquire the car I had admired
since 1989? There are probably two events which led me to start
searching for it. The first is my job came with some
stock options several years back that had appreciated nicely, or
rather very, very nicely! The second is seeing my sister lose her
five year bravely fought battle against leukemia in 2004. which
reminded me that life is precious, and any one of us could be hit
by the proverbial bus tomorrow. Translation: you can save money
for "someday" rather than buy something you've always
wanted, but as I learned
after losing my sister, there are no guarantees that "someday"
will ever come. So the decision was made and after looking for six
months we located and bought our car down in Southern CA in April
2005, a couple months after I joined (GHMC. As I approach the two
year anniversary of owning this car, there have been no regrets,
and I have found that after two nice-weather seasons most of the
enjoyment comes from driving the car, not staring at it collecting
dust in some warehouse!
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One particular highlight so far was meeting Carroll Shelby at the
Shelby Club's annual convention (SAAC-30) in July '05 down at the
California Speedway. And no I didn't drive our car there, I simply
took the dash panel off the car and brought it with me for him to
sign. While I believe in driving ther car as mentioned above, a
road trip to LA is stretching it! After introducing my daughter
Shelby to him, he lit up like a Christmas tree, having a brief conversation
with us, and giving us his business card for her to take to school,
"please send me a school picture." Even though this very
scenario has probably happened hundreds if not a thousand times,
I think he is genuinely touched each time he meets one of many “Shelby’s”
out there.
Some facts about the '68 Shelby:
The 1968 Shelbys were marketed as "Shelby Cobras" (as
distinguished from '67 Shelby Mustangs), as the name appears on
the steering wheel center emblem, seat belt push buttons, wheel
center caps as well as the owners manual and all print advertising
material. Carroll Shelby had ceased production of the 2 seat Cobra
roadsters (let's be honest...the "real" Cobras) in 1966
and wanted to keep the Cobra
name on people's minds for a possible re-instatement for the 1969
model year. However, Ford (and the bean-counters of course) wanted
no part of that as the horsepower/cubic inch wars of the late 60's
were winding down between the Big Three auto makers so these plans
were abandoned.
There were 4,451 Shelbys produced for 1968 (out of 317,404 total
'68 Mustards) which was the high-point of the 1965 - 1970 Shelby
production run. The 4,451 was almost evenly split between GT350's
(32%), 6T500's (33%) and the GT500KR (35%). For the first 28 years
or so', it was thought that there were only 933 KR Fastbacks and
318 KR Convertibles which would represent 28% of the total. However,
about ten years ago actual copies of Shelby American factory sales
or shipping invoices for every '65 - '70 Shelby car made were discovered
by Carroll in a filing cabinet in an attic and promptly turned over
to the Shelby Club (SAAC). While the grand total for each year was
correct, lots of debated issues such as the number of prototypes
and unit counts for each model within each year were cleared up
once and for all. From this it was learned that there were actually
1,053 KR Fastbacks (8T02Rxxxxxx) and 518 KR Convertibles (8T03Rxxxxxx).
The GT500KR was a mid -year replacement for the GT500, and coincided
with Ford's April 1968 release of their new R-code 428 Cobra Jet
engine available in the regular Mustang line (mostly Fas+backs).
This engine was fitted with 427 low-riser heads with larger valves
and combustion chambers, a high nodular cast iron crankshaft, dished
pistons, and stronger connecting rods. All 428CJ cars (both Shelby
KR's and Mustangs) also received special engine comportment bracing,
wider rear brake drums and shoes and staggered rear shocks for four-speed
cars.
Where did the "KR" come from? There was a rumor in the
automotive world that GM was going to market a 1969 big-block Corvette
(some books say Camaro. Carroll says it was a Corvette) as the "King
of the Road." After Carroll had his lawyer verify that it hadn't
yet been registered, he promptly ordered it copyrighted ("and
I mean by 5:00 today!") thereby stealing it away from GM and
their layers of bureaucracy. He found great pleasure in his simple
little company, Shelby American, sticking it to the big corporate
giant!
For those of you into music, 1968 saw Roger Miller score a Top-40
radio hit titled "King of the Road." Talk about some free
advertising...I'm sure Ford dealerships wore their 8-Track players
out whenever they had a KR in the showroom. However. Ford and Shelby
had nothing to do with the song, its author or the timing of its
release to the public...just another example of Shelby s magic/luck/great
timing! (pick one).
Some facts about our car:
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Per one previous owner I've tracked down so far, this car had sat
in a barn for several years before being "discovered"
in a barbershop conversation. The lucky customer (sporting the fresh
haircut) immediately sent it to KAR Mustang out of Columbus, OH
where the restoration was completed in 1994 at just under 42,000
miles; only 800 miles have been added in the last 11 years at the
time I bought it. The seat upholstery, however, is original (38
years old), which is not really a surprise given that many of the
previous owners didn't drive the car, and sadly for some of them,
not even a single mile! It has the original 428 Cobra Jet engine
with the C6 automatic transmission. For those of you into the "stats",
the breakdown of automatics vs. four-speed transmissions was 45%
/ 55% (per Marti Report for KR convertibles).
One unusual item about our car is that it has the 428 Cobra Jet
fender emblem on the passenger side dash rather than the "proper"
emblem. I was going to replace it until I found a Nov. 1981 Mustang
Monthly article by Rick Kopec of SAAC which states that "...KR's
have a 428CJ emblem on the dash." My thought is that if the
assembly line bin was empty when several cars rolled by they probably
substituted the fender emblem, so if mine was made that way I'm
keeping it that way! Some of the projects or "re-restoration"
I've done to the car include: having the convertible top motor rebuilt;
having the seat belts professionally refinished by Snake-Oyl Products;
installing the proper speckled burtex trunk mat; and replacing all
ra-diator and heater hoses and clamps with the proper date-coded
ones.
Future projects include having the carburetor professionally rebuilt
by Pony Carburetors; troubleshooting the vacuum system on the tilt-away
steering; eliminating the play in the steering wheel (steering box
rebuild?); cleaning up surface rust on the exhaust system (caused
by too much sitting/not enough driving!); and replacing the entire
emergency brake cable system, which I believe somehow causes the
rear brakes to occasionally grab just enough to heat up hot enough
to fry an egg or your misplaced finger! I'd also like to do a DMV
title search to try and locate as many former owners as possible
(does anyone have any tips on how to actually do this?)
Well I hope you have enjoyed my story, and I very much appreciate
all of thekind words and compliments I receive on the Shelby; however,
I do always try to remind people...it is just a car! Believe me,
I would rather have my sister back.
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