Most 1967 Mustang shoppers checked the box for a small block and called it a day, leaving the FE-series 390 big block as a rare road not taken. This Candy Apple Red S-code carries that overlooked factory muscle without a single flashy stripe to announce it. Fewer than 29,000 Mustangs got this engine that year, and the market still hasn’t fully caught on to how good a deal that makes them today.
Pop the hood on a numbers-matching 1967 Mustang and you can usually guess the story before you even check the fender tag. But an S-code car changes the conversation entirely, because Ford buried this one under a wave of small-block Mustangs that most buyers never seriously considered. Only 28,800 Mustangs left the factory with the 390 big block that year, out of well over 400,000 built — a small slice of the run, and one most casual shoppers walked right past on the showroom floor. This Candy Apple Red example wears the part casually, no screaming stripes or hood scoops needed to make its case. So what does that single letter “S” on the fender tag actually unlock, and why do sharp-eyed collectors quietly call these the smartest buy in the entire 1967 lineup?
What the “S” on the Fender Tag Really Means
The S-code designation marks a Mustang built with the FE-series 390 cubic inch V8, the largest engine Ford offered in a 1967 Mustang and a direct descendant of the big block that had already been doing duty in Thunderbirds and Galaxies. Factory paperwork put it at roughly 320 horsepower and 427 lb-ft of torque, numbers that don’t look dramatic on paper next to later Cobra Jet cars but felt entirely different in a pony car this light. Order the automatic version and Ford stuck another badge on the car: GTA, for Grand Touring Automatic, a designation that existed only in 1967 and only on these big-block cars.
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The Big-Block Squeeze of ’67
None of this was possible before the 1967 redesign. The first-generation Mustang’s engine bay was built around small blocks, and Ford had to widen the whole front clip for ’67 specifically to make room for FE-series power. That single design decision is the reason S-code cars exist at all, and it’s why the 390 option didn’t show up until Mustang’s second model year. Once it did, most buyers still checked the box for a 289 instead — cheaper, lighter over the front wheels, and plenty quick enough for daily driving. That left the big-block cars as the minority they remain today.
The Market’s Quiet Sleeper
Ask any Mustang guy about 1967 and the conversation usually goes straight to the K-code 289 or jumps ahead to the 428 Cobra Jet a year later. The S-code 390 gets skipped over almost every time, and that’s exactly why its values have stayed comparatively sane while flashier codes climbed out of reach. It’s real factory muscle, genuinely rare on the ground, and still priced like the market hasn’t caught on yet — which, for now, it hasn’t. A driver-quality S-code is one of the last honest bargains left in the 1967 Mustang world.
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