This is the Only Factory Convertible 1967 Shelby GT 500 Mustang

Ford built exactly one 1967 Shelby GT500 convertible, then decided not to build a second — pushing the body style back to the following model year instead. Carroll Shelby claimed the lone survivor as his own company car, loaning it out to friends, employees, and Ford executives for months before its true rarity was widely understood. Painted Candyapple Red and carrying Shelby serial number 0139, it remains one of a kind. Here’s the story behind the only factory GT500 convertible Ford ever made for 1967.

Wow! What a story!!

Somewhere in Shelby American’s Los Angeles shop in late 1966, three brand-new Mustangs sat finished and ready — a coupe, a fastback, and a convertible, all painted the same Candyapple Red. Two of them would go on to become the template for an entire production run. The third never did. Ford had decided to shelve the convertible GT500 until the following model year, which left exactly one 1967 example in existence — and Carroll Shelby himself claimed it as his personal car. For the next four months, that single convertible got loaned out to friends, employees, and visiting Ford executives like it was nothing special at all. It was anything but.

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Serial Number 0139

The car carries Shelby sequence number 0139, and it’s the only 1967 GT500 convertible ever produced. Along with its coupe and fastback siblings, it was built as one of the first production GT500s to come off Ford’s assembly line, all three finished in matching Candyapple Red and equipped identically: a 428-cubic-inch “Police Interceptor” V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors, a C6 automatic transmission, air conditioning, power steering, power brakes, tinted glass, and a black interior. The coupe and fastback were completed first; the convertible followed about two weeks later, in November 1966.

Carroll Shelby’s Own Company Car

Rather than joining a production line that never materialized, the convertible was reserved as an engineering prototype and company car, and Carroll Shelby assigned it to himself. Over the following months it doubled as his personal driver and a loaner for friends, employees, and Ford Motor Company executives passing through Los Angeles — casual duty for a car that, unknown to most of the people driving it, would never be duplicated. By most accounts, few of the people who got behind the wheel during those months realized they were driving a car that would remain one of one.

Why Ford Never Built a Second One

Shelby wanted a factory GT500 convertible in the 1967 lineup, but Ford opted to hold the body style back until the following model year instead. That decision, made for reasons of production timing rather than the car’s merit, is the entire explanation for why one Candyapple Red convertible stands alone as the only one of its kind — a status that makes it one of the most significant Shelby Mustangs in existence today. It’s valued today not for what it could do, but for what never came after it.

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