The Hertz Car Rental People

For another $1500 beyond the $4500 list price, you could have a complete road-racing package that would set you up for the Sports Car Club of America’s B-production competition class, and for that relatively modest price you had yourself a winner. (It won the class championship in 1965 and 1966.) In all, that first GT 350 was a delightfully untamed automobile, although in our first road test of the machine, C/D warned: “In all honesty, it cannot be said that the Mustang GT 350 is the sort of a car a sane man would enjoy driving at all times and under all conditions.”

Indeed that was the case. Sanity prevailed for the most part in the marketplace and relatively few GT 350s were sold that first year (1965), although the few that did reach the streets were invaluable in boosting Ford’s image as a company deeply committed to performance. The following year Shelby sold a bunch of 350s to the Hertz car rental people (designated 350Hs and uniformly decorated in black with gold stripes) and the rear seat, plus a few other amenities reappeared. But it remained, again in C/D’s words, “A guts sports car with hair on its chest—all the way down to its navel.” By then Shelby-American was in its decline; moving daily toward complete domination by Ford and an effort by the Dearborn product planners and stylists to turn the fantastically saleable brand names “Cobra” and “Shelby GT 350” into merchandise with sales appeal. The 1967 model year was the last for the 306-hp High-Riser and also marked the end of that wonderful bulge-body, Anglo-American roadster known as the Cobra.

By 1968, they were fooling with airplanes on West Imperial Boulevard again, and the brilliant crew that had developed the Cobra and the original GT 350 were for the most part scattered around the racing community. Only a tiny nucleus remained with ol’ Shelby himself as be launched into the construction of the ill-fated Shelby-Wallis Indianapolis turbines. Back in Dearborn, the “Cobra” and “GT 350” were amalgamated into a single nameplate that was affixed to slightly modified Mustang coupes carrying 302 cu. in. V-8s (with a blower optional) and the powerful Le Mans and Daytona winning 427. But, as they say in the men’s room, the handwriting was on the wall, and the “Cobra GT 350” was headed for a niche in the Ford lineup of performance cars, so that the fabled combination of names could be marketed to a larger segment of the market. And so we come to the 1969 edition of the Shelby GT 350; a garter snake in Cobra skin, affixed with dozens of name plates reading “Shelby,” “Shelby-American,” “Cobra,” and “GT 350,” as if to consistently re-assure the owner that he is driving the real thing and not a neatly decorated Mustang (which he is). The new Shelby is indeed a looker—low and long; covered with scoops and slots and nasty, high-powered curves. It is a truly imposing machine, in appearance at least, and I personally can’t think of an automobile that makes a statement about performance in sheet metal and fiberglass any better than the current edition of the GT 350. Our test car—a pre-production prototype, by the way—was a convertible, complete with a luminous side stripe and enough racing car plumage to put a P4 Ferrari to shame. The front of the car, viewed dead-on, looks amazingly like a Trans-Am Camaro, fitted as it is with a nearly bumper-less nose piece and single headlamps (which we found to be dangerously devoid of lumens). Clustered beneath the grille is a pair of Lucas driving lights, controlled by a toggle switch on the console, that would be of great benefit if they are not aimed a yard in front of the car, as on our test car.