Ford Mustang 1968 Shelby GT350

For 1968, Ford let Shelby buyers order a GT350 with the top down for the first time, and just 404 convertibles were built, making it the rarest body style in the entire 1968 Shelby lineup. It also marked the year the GT350 changed engines, swapping the legendary 289 High Performance for a 302 that Shelby purists were not expecting. Production had moved out of California entirely by this point. Read on for what a 1968 GT350 convertible really represents.

Carroll Shelby spent the first years of his Mustang program building cars that were openly hostile to comfort. Early GT350s had no back seat worth the name, a locked rear axle that barked around corners, and a ride quality that owners describe with a certain grim pride. So the idea of a Shelby with a folding cloth roof, sold to people who wanted sunshine more than lap times, should have been a betrayal of everything the badge stood for. Ford built it anyway in 1968, and it turned out to be the scarcest thing in the entire Shelby catalog that year. The reason that happened says more about Ford than it does about Shelby.

The Rarest Body Style Shelby Ever Offered

1968 was the first model year a buyer could order a genuine GT350 convertible, and Ford built just 404 of them. Set that against 1,253 GT350 fastbacks from the same year and the rarity becomes obvious immediately. The convertible bodies received additional reinforcement around the windshield frame and underbody to compensate for the missing roof structure, because a Shelby-rate suspension in an unreinforced open car would have been an unpleasant experience over broken pavement. A standard roll bar, complete with mounting points for optional harnesses, did double duty as both a safety feature and a structural member.

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Goodbye 289, Hello 302

The engine change is the detail that separates people who know these cars from people who have only read about them. The 289 High Performance V8 that defined the early GT350 was gone for 1968, replaced by a 302-cubic-inch small block rated at 250 horsepower. Purists grumbled then and some still grumble now, but the 302 was a more tractable street engine with better low-end response, and it suited what the 1968 car had become. This was no longer a stripped competition special. It was a boulevard machine with real credentials, and Ford specified an engine that matched the mission.

Production Left California and Nobody Talks About It

By 1968, Shelby American’s Los Angeles operation was out of the picture entirely. Ford moved production to the A.O. Smith facility in Michigan, where the fiberglass panels were fitted and the cars assembled after arriving as partially completed Mustangs. Shelby’s involvement had become largely a matter of branding and consultation rather than hands-on construction. That transition is genuinely important to how these cars are valued, because it marks the point where the Shelby Mustang shifted from a small-shop creation into a Ford-run production program with a famous name attached to it.

Fiberglass Everywhere You Look

The fiberglass content on a 1968 Shelby is extensive and it is the fastest way to spot one from a distance. The hood, the nose section with its wide grille opening and driving lamps, the deck lid with its integrated spoiler, and the quarter panel extensions with their functional-looking scoops are all glass rather than steel. The upper side scoops fed brake cooling ducts and the lower ones vented the cabin. The result is a car noticeably longer and lower-looking than the Mustang it started as, without any actual change to the underlying structure.

Those Sequential Taillights Came From a Cougar

The sequential taillights are one of the great parts-bin stories of the era. Ford lifted them from the Mercury Cougar, where the three-segment lens with its sweeping turn signal sequence was already in production, and adapted them to the wider Shelby tail panel. It is exactly the kind of clever cross-division borrowing that kept the Shelby program financially viable. It also gives the 1968 cars a rear-end signature completely unlike any Mustang, and correct original lenses are now a meaningful line item in any honest restoration budget.

The Paxton Supercharger Option Almost Nobody Ordered

A Paxton supercharger remained available on the GT350, and almost nobody checked the box. The installation added meaningful power to the 302 but it also added cost, complexity and a maintenance burden that a buyer shopping for an open-top cruiser was unlikely to want. Documented supercharged cars are exceptionally scarce and are treated as a category unto themselves by serious collectors. Unfortunately the setup is also straightforward enough to add retroactively, which means the paperwork on a claimed factory-blown car matters even more than usual.

GT350 Versus GT500: A Genuine Character Split

The GT500 sitting alongside the GT350 in 1968 showrooms was a fundamentally different animal. It carried a big-block 428 and, from midyear, the Cobra Jet version in the GT500KR, and it made its case with torque rather than balance. The GT350’s small block gave it noticeably better weight distribution and a lighter, more willing front end. Buyers who cared about how a car turned tended toward the GT350; buyers who cared about how it left a stoplight went to the GT500. Both arguments are legitimate, and both camps still make them at shows.

The Roll Bar Was Standard, and That Mattered

The roll bar deserves more attention than it usually receives, because on an open car it is structural rather than decorative. Shelby specified a padded bar with integral mounting points for shoulder harnesses, and on convertibles it tied into the reinforced body to resist the flex an unroofed unibody would otherwise suffer over broken pavement. It was one of the very few genuine safety features offered on any American performance car of the period, arriving years before the industry began taking the subject seriously. It also gives the cabin of a 1968 convertible a purposeful look that no ordinary Mustang ragtop can match, which does the car no harm at all.

How to Tell a Real 1968 Shelby From a Very Good Fake

Authentication on 1968 Shelbys is serious business, because the fiberglass panels and trim are all reproducible and Mustang convertibles are plentiful. The real markers are structural and documentary: the Shelby serial number, the specific reinforcement work on convertible bodies, the correct A.O. Smith assembly details, and registry records maintained by the Shelby American Automobile Club. Anyone considering one of these cars should treat registry verification as a non-negotiable step rather than a formality, because the gap in value between a documented car and a very convincing tribute is enormous.

Why the Convertible Market Went Its Own Way

The convertible market for these cars has behaved differently from the fastback market for decades, and the low build number is only part of the reason. Open cars were driven differently, stored differently and repaired differently, so the surviving population skews toward cars that have been apart at least once. Finding one with an honest body, correct fiberglass and unbroken history takes patience. When one surfaces wearing its original color combination and a legible set of numbers, it tends not to stay on the market long. Would you take the 404-car convertible or the fastback everyone recognizes? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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