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| 1967 Shelby GT500. It matched the avocado dishwasher, I guess. |
The gun show last weekend was in the Kokomo Event Center, which also happens to house a spiffy little car museum. I'm sure Bobbi and I will be uploading pictures off and on for a while to come...
The GT500 above raises mixed emotions... On the one hand, putting that big FE block up front destroys the handling qualities the small-block GT350 was known for. On the other hand, it would burn the rear tires down to the rims with a sharp glance at the gas pedal, plus lots of scoops.
Please, pardon the drool on the screen.
ReplyDeleteDrool.
ReplyDeleteWant. At least an unsupervised test drive in a parking lot the size of Rhode Island.
To be truthful...while I do enjoy the "classic muscle" I actually prefer the oddities.
ReplyDeleteOld station wagons, for one. They got run to death by the parents, and rather than get traded in, it was Junior's first ride at 16 so he put the last few nails in the coffin so they mostly got scrapped. Same with old pickups, most of them get worked and worked and treated like, well, a truck.
Same with older, well, actual heavy duty, trucks. There's an old Diamond Rio cab over semi truck northwest of Delaware (Ohio) I see from time to time...though it looks immobile, the cab looks to be in good shape outside.
And two weeks ago, I saw a Model 21 Marion Steam Shovel at the Marion Heavy Equipment Museum, across from their Veterans Memorial coliseum (FUN SHOW!). That was neat...as it could be over a hundred years old, but it hadn't been moved outside until after we'd gone inside to peruse blasters.
I just like interesting things. Prefer horsepower in form of, say, a dump truck or a 4 wheel drive rather than something that I could take from Zero to No License in less than a day...but I still appreciate musclecars.
My 70 Camero was almost that color.
ReplyDeleteIt was lovingly called The Pickle.
Gerry
But do you know the the FE stands for in the 390/406/427 engine series?
ReplyDeleteWayne
428, too. That's what's most likely in that GT-500. They did make a very few '67 GT-500's with 427's. I owned a '67 S-code fastback (non-Shelby, non-GT 390 big-block), and I had a 428-CJ block & crank sitting on a pallet in the garage. Sold 'em in 2009 for significantly more than I paid for them. I miss that car, but I like my 2011 better. Never cared for Ford's Lime Gold paint color, though. And I preferred Shelby's '68 hood. Still, I wouldn't turn that one down if someone gave it to me.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there was a small V-8 block, 352? also in the FE family. But what does the F-E initails stand for? Hint: in the late 50's early 60s Lincolns & Mercurys had MEL blocks.
ReplyDeleteIn Kansas there are more perfectly straight roads than there are roads in, say, London. Most of which are the size of, and follow, old horse paths. The Stang was made to gofast in straight lines; it's a great car for America. Sure, it's not good around curves, but then, really, neither is a piano.
ReplyDeleteNever thought much about how the Shelby would handle...that's a great point. But yeah...in my teens that was the car to dream about.
ReplyDeleteI ended up with a '78 Trans Am 400 6.6 with a Hurst tranny. Lordy how I miss that car. But...I was one ticket away from losing my license...it had to go...
Sweet ride. I always wanted one of those.
ReplyDeleteI sure miss my 69 Super Bee. Go fast grocery and ticket machine.
Dad's '67 fastback is that color.
ReplyDeleteThe Smarter Half had a TA like LCBs.
There are still Florida State Troopers wondering where that blonde went.
I've got my late grandfather's '69 Ford F100 with a 352. There was a 332 CID that powered Edsels (the E part of FE, or Ford-Edsel).
ReplyDeleteThirsty but torquey. I may swap the intake and put a small, efficient 4bbl on it and improve on the exhaust one of these days. I've built several 390/428 engines over the years and for a fairly dated dinosaur of an engine you'd be surprised at what a beast they are.
Were all (or any) the scoops working scoops? A Steinway has some nice curves. I never had a car with much get-up.
ReplyDeleteMore years ago than I care to admit, I saw the oral surgeon who'd removed my wisdom teeth at the local car show. His GT500KR convertible was flawless, enough so that I wondered if Engineering was the right course of study!
ReplyDeleteI don't give a damn about a Mustang.
ReplyDeleteBut I do love me some reed-green car.
Drove a '69 Mach I in high school in the seventies with the 390 and top-loader four speed. You didn't want to get those above 130 or 140 without the air dam you could get from the Ford Muscle Parts book, that's when you could feel the front end start to sort of get all floaty and light.
ReplyDeleteMike James
Always wondered who the idiot was at Ford that was such an enthusiast of ugly versions of the color green, which is pretty much all of them. My '71 Mustang with the 429 Super Cobra Jet had a puke green color, inside and out. That didn't last much past the first owner.
ReplyDeleteTrumped only by the GT-500KR. Those last 2 letters mean a lot. As in lots of thousands of $$$$$.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless Carroll Shelby, that man was an awesome car designer.
The 332, 352, 360, 361, 406, & 410 FE blocks were the same size overall as the 390, 427 and 428. The scoops on the fastback were functional, the ones on the fenders weren't unless the car owner put in the ducting to the rear brakes, IIRC. The hood scoops were definitely functional.
ReplyDeleteA friend in high school, circa 1980, had a 67 mustang with a 390 in it. Yup, all it could do would burn the tires down to a nub. In all other ways it sucked. That experience soured me on all things pony car.
ReplyDeleteDetroit has always been much better at advertising than engineering.
I was barely a teen at the time but remember well the showpiece GT500 on our small town Ford dealer's showroom floor...might even have left some slobber on it. The $4700 sticker price might as well have been a million, but I wouldn't mind paying that now :).
ReplyDeleteBut I'll never forgive Shelby for this: contrary to the general concensus here, the GT500 was considered a bit docile with smooth handling compared to the Goliath it was set against, the 427 Vette. And a read of the head-to-head comparison in Motor Trend that year makes it clear that the ruination of the Corvette the following year was in direct response to the threat from this David aka Shelby GT.
And here's a shocker; that beast was just barely faster in the quarter than my new 5000 POUND F-150 SIX CYLINDER! WHICH ALSO CAN HAUL A CREW OF SIX WHILE TOTING A LOAD IN THE BED, SHROUDING OCCUPANTS IN THE SAFETY OF AIRBAGS AND CURTAINS AND DELIVERING DOUBLE THE FUEL MILEAGE!
I'm an old a guy and as such a big believer in old ways and old things being better. But sometimes it just ain't true.
I'd still lay down the five G's for that gorgeous LimeLight Mustang, but it would likely take six figures to take it home now, and that probably won't be true forty five years from now for my truck, ya think?
PB
@ PB:
ReplyDeleteNO "performance" pony car, back in the day, could put its power to the ground from a dead start. They HAD to have traction bars and slicks, (preferably wrinkle-wall slicks with the big motors,) to be able to launch hard. Really bad weight distribution, even with small V8 engines.
Example: My stock '71 would turn a mid-14 sec/108mph run at Fremont CA, with the biggest street tires I could find. Spinning both tires the entire distance, using only the primaries of the factory Holley. Can't recall the numbers, but at Atco NJ it would turn flat 11's with slicks.
Maybe it was the exception to the rule...but the '78 T/A 6.6 not only burned rubber with the 400, but it handled very nicely. Part of the package was a radial tuned suspension. Thing would hug corners like a dream. Did I mention that I missed it???
ReplyDelete