If you should be attracted to the Shelby by a combination of its dazzling looks, pleasant interior and the general aura of its name, do not, I repeat, do not, try to race anybody with it. This is to say that the car we tested was a tame tabby, to say the least. Our car was equipped with the manually-shiftable 3-speed Ford automatic transmission, which might have cut its performance slightly, but it was decidedly sluggish in comparison with many of today’s so-called performance cars. Using 6000 rpm as a shift point, 0-60 times were an adequate 7.0- to 7.5-seconds, but acceleration seemed to tail off badly at higher speed ranges. Although no quarter-mile times were taken, all of us on the staff agreed we would be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that the 3600-pound, 290-hp machine we drove would not break 15.5 seconds in the quarter without considerable tweaking. It is not a hot machine, and is probably not intended to be, regardless of the implication of devices like aluminum intake manifolds, ram-air carburetion and a lovely, burbling exhaust note.
So what do we have in the Shelby Cobra GT 350, 1969 style? Certainly not what Carroll Shelby and his gang of merry men dreamed up five models previously. It is really a dolled-up version of the new Mustang Grande—a baby ‘Bird, as we said before. This is a curious duplication of effort, it seems, because the heritage of the GT 350 is performance, and it is difficult to understand why the Ford marketing experts failed to exploit its reputation.
If Ford had carried the GT 350 through its logical evolution, it would today be a Dearborn version of the Camaro Z/28. In fact, the Z/28, not the Shelby, is the rightful ancestor to the first GT 350, and that seems a bit of a shame from Ford’s viewpoint. As you recall, Chevy brought out the Z/28 to make a racecar legal for Trans-Am racing. However, it was so hot almost from the moment it hit the stands that it is on its way to becoming legendary among both the drag racing and the sports car sets. The GT 350 should be the same thing; the basis for a hot road racing and drag racing machine that the public can buy for about $4500. (Exactly what it was in the beginning, ironically). In that context, the grand reputation of Shelby American and its fire-breathing cars would be exploited to the fullest by the men in Dearborn.
This rather obvious revelation came to me as I rolled the Shelby through a small town in Upstate New York—an area where a Cobra or a GT 350 is as rare as a subway token. The striking looks of the machine quickly attracted the hot-car set including the driver of a bright green Z/28 (one of two in this tiny town of 4500). He made a couple of passes past the gas station where I was filling up, obviously trying to lure me out for a quick showdown. I just sat there, saving myself some unneeded embarrassment.
I could only comfort myself by thinking that if it had been three years earlier, I’d have had a chance.
Somehow, that doesn’t make sense.
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