albany-times-unionFord has produced more Mustang variants than most people can count. None of them has ever been called the "most beautiful American car of the 1960s" ... except one.The 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 has earned that distinction, and one look at it makes the stance hard to dispute. Long, aggressive and unmistakably purposeful, the GT500 was not simply a faster Mustang. It was Carroll Shelby's vision of what a true American performance car could be, and it arrived looking like nothing else on the road.The Car Carroll Shelby BuiltBy 1967, Shelby had already transformed the Mustang once with the GT350. The GT500 was something more ambitious — a grand touring muscle car that combined big-block power with the kind of visual presence that made other cars look ordinary by comparison.Under the hood sat Ford's 428 cubic inch Police Interceptor V8, rated at a conservative 355 horsepower but producing closer to 400 in real-world conditions, fed by dual Holley four-barrel carburetors. The result was a thundering, ferocious machine that delivered exactly what its appearance promised.Outside, the GT500 received a comprehensive redesign at the hands of Shelby and his team. A unique fiberglass front end with an aggressive grille, integrated high-beam lights and a functional hood scoop gave the car a presence that was immediately distinct from any standard Mustang. Twin racing stripes ran the full length of the car. Custom taillights borrowed from the 1965 Thunderbird and a fiberglass rear decklid completed a look that was both purposeful and genuinely beautiful. The GT500 is RareThe GT500's beauty is matched by its rarity. Only 2,048 examples were produced in 1967 — the last year Shelby American built the cars entirely in-house at their Los Angeles facility. From 1968 onward, production shifted closer to Ford, marking the end of what purists consider the true Shelby era. That history makes the 1967 model the most coveted of all GT500s, with survivors in original condition commanding serious money at auction. High-quality restorations regularly fetch six figures, and numbers-matching examples with desirable factory options can go significantly higher. A Cultural IconThe GT500's legend extends well beyond the collector car world. A heavily modified silver example — named Eleanor — starred in the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds alongside Nicolas Cage, instantly becoming a pop culture phenomenon and introducing the car to a generation that had never heard of Carroll Shelby. But the GT500's status as the most beautiful American car of the 1960s doesn't rest on a movie appearance. It rests on what Carroll Shelby and his team created in 1967 — a machine that managed to be simultaneously aggressive and elegant, raw and refined, functional and genuinely, undeniably beautiful.More than half a century later, no Mustang has matched it and to be honest, neither has much else.
