Shelby Mustang GT500 (1967)
A blend of sports car and muscle car, the 1967 Shelby GT 500 satisfyed a maturing taste for high performance.
The GT 500 represented a departure for Ford factory tuner Carroll Shelby. To make a road-racing champ of the 1965-1966 Mustangs, Shelby had transformed them into thundering thoroughbreds ill-suited to everyday driving. By 1967, however, Shelby’s audience was demanding more civility, and the original pony car was undergoing a revamp that finally gave it room for big-block power.
With the introduction of the 1967 models, regular Mustangs could get a 320-bhp 390-cid four-barrel V-8. Shelby, naturally, went further. His GT 350 retained its 289-cid V-8 with its 306-bhp rating. And a new model, the 1967 Shelby GT 500, got a reworked 428-cid “Police Interceptor.”
The 428 was otherwise reserved for bigger Fords, where it made 345 bhp. Shelby added the cast-aluminum medium-rise intake manifold from Ford’s 427, twin 600-cfm Holley four-barrel carburetors, and other tweaks for a conservative rating of 355 bhp. During manufacture or through dealers, a handful of 1967 Shelby GT 500s were equipped with Ford’s near race-ready 427-cid V-8.
