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Carroll Shelby’s heart condition ended his racing career, but it never slowed down the second act that followed. From founding Shelby American in 1962 to shaping the Cobra, the Shelby Mustang, and later Dodge’s Viper program under Lee Iacocca and Bob Lutz, Shelby left his fingerprints on two rival American automakers at once. Read on to find out how one man’s name ended up on performance cars from both Ford and Dodge.
Every 1967 Shelby GT500 that left the factory carried a 428, not a 427. So when a GT500 shows up with a genuine side-oiler under the hood, the first question is whether you are looking at a very good engine swap or something considerably rarer. There is exactly one factory answer to that question, and its story involves a test track, a set of tires, and a car Ford was afraid to sell.
Dodge unveiled the Challenger SRT Demon with a supercharged Hemi V8 rated at 840 horsepower, factory-fitted wide-body fender flares, and a production run capped at just 3,300 units total. The reveal landed alongside news that Ford was extending availability of its own Shelby Mustangs, giving performance buyers two big storylines at once. Both moves capped a mid-2010s horsepower race that pushed Dodge, Ford, and Chevrolet to repeatedly one-up each other. Read on to find out which of these limited-run factory monsters will matter more to collectors decades from now.
Mark Klopack of Hot Rod Auto Body Restoration in Schiller Park, Illinois, calls this 1969 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 an all-original car — a claim that carries real weight in a market full of reproduction panels and patchwork restorations. Finished in Royal Maroon and shown at World of Wheels in Rosemont, the car doubles as a working portfolio piece for Klopack’s shop. As one of the last genuinely Shelby-built GT350s before Ford took the reins in 1970, it’s a car built on pedigree rather than horsepower bragging rights. Watch to see what all-original really means up close.