1965 Shelby 350 GTR

...or a Small Conversion of Monogram Ford Mustang

n by Göran Kindlund
n English translation by Magnus Fridsell

The Shelby Mustang

Usually called the Shelby Mustang, this was a Ford Mustang heavily modified by Carol Shelby. Ford wanted to use Shelby’s image from the successful challenge of Ferrari in the Sports Car World Championships by Shelby Cobras with Ford V8-engines. They asked Shelby to build a hotter Mustang under his own name. Shelby saw this as a chance to build a "B-production"-class car, a car much closer to normal standards than the Cobra was. 

Already the street version of the Mustang, the 350 GT, was extreme and the pure racing version, the R-model, was competitive on the race tracks of the USA well into the seventies! The fact is that the GT was rather too extreme for street use, the exhaust pipes terminated under the doors and combined with non-existent sound-proofing, this made speaking to the passenger or listening to the radio virtually impossible. Parts of the rear suspension were, due to them needing to be of the optimum length, attached inside the car. These were sealed using leather sleeves that soon started to leak dust. The rear axle also had a differential lock making the car sounding like a stone-crusher if turning and accelerating at the same time. 

Customers came back complaining that the car was falling into pieces and that it lacked any kind of comfort... however, Carroll got his racing car! After 1965, the Shelbys became more and more civilised, at the end of the sixties they were mostly standard Mustangs with some cosmetic adjustments, probably what Ford had wanted from the beginning!

The Kit

This is the Monogram kit of a 1965 Shelby 350 GT. The most obvious difference between this and the R-model is the air scoop up front, a resin part from Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland. Apart from a plain steel floor from another kit, no other big changes to the has been made. However, there were lots of smaller modifications: Wheels, rear axle, dashboard, seats, safety harness, engine, engine compartment and grille have been remade, detailed or manufactured from scratch. 

Painting is done with Humbrol enamels, naturally using an airbrush.

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