This ’68 Shelby GT500 KR is one that got away—and it’s probably just as well
What’s that thing I’ve read? Something about how you’re not really dead until the last person to say your name has also left the planet?
My dad’s been gone since 1996, and we four kids still remember him with great affection and more frequency than you’d expect given it’s been, let’s see … 27 years now. The photo of him and my mom on the wall has been hanging there so long I no longer really notice it, and his photo smile never did really convey the man anyway.
Sometime in 1977, during my junior year at Ruskin High School, I was walking home—which might mean my Triumph Spitfire was either down for the count again or I hadn’t acquired it quite yet. I came to the corner of Red Bridge Road and Bennington Avenue and a stunning Shelby GT500 KR convertible was gleaming at me from the wrap-around driveway of the nicest, biggest house around, with its top down and a “For Sale” sign on the windshield: $6500. If the Shelby shown here, listed early this year on Bring A Trailer, isn’t that very car, I’ll eat the white convertible top.
The first sentence of the BaT ad reads: “This 1968 Shelby Mustang GT500 KR is one of 518 convertibles produced for the model year and was built on June 26, 1968. It was delivered to Paul’s Ford Sales of Kansas City, Missouri . . .”
Tall Paul’s Ford was only about a mile down the road, and it’s hard to imagine there being two of these in that skinflint part of KC. There were plenty of Mustangs around, already clapped out at 10 years old, thanks to winter salt and period modifications, but the perfect, unmolested GT500 KR I saw seemed to have nothing in common with them. It must have spent all its time in the garage, or I surely would have seen it before. At that time, I was more of a Camaro guy, but seeing it there for sale, I was suddenly willing to rethink.
In my mind’s eye, I think it was spring, because I remember the patches of snow on the driveway that set off the red paint, just like in the BaT ad. The convertible top was down to reveal the racy black roll bar that KRs came with.
Soon as Pops rolled in from work in his AMC Ambassador, I laid it on him. “Dad! You have to buy this Shelby Mustang GT500 KR convertible!” I knew he was shopping for a new car anyway. In those days, you kind of had to buy a new car every few years, as they rusted away beneath you.
“Mustang?” he said in his Alabama drawl. Dad was never a Ford guy, either.
As part of my pitch, I may even have told him it would be collectible, though I doubt I really had any such idea at the time. I just wanted to drive around in the thing—who wouldn’t? “Dad, it’s a 428 Cobra Jet! With A/C and a power top! And it’s red and looks brand new!”
“How much?” he asked.
“Only $6500!”
He took a long pull from his evening vodka tonic, fixed me with one eye and said, “There’s no way in hell I’m paying no sixty-five hundred dollars for no ten-year-old Mustang.” He liked to revert to the vernacular when making certain declarative points.
I think I knew that would be his reaction, but I had to put it out there anyway, just in case. We needed cars to drive, not to collect, and Dad had a history of buying vehicles that didn’t really lend themselves to emotional attachment. Maybe I did sense the KR would be collectible some day, because by 1977 Ford was slapping the Mustang name on some truly atrocious little automobiles, which made even us Chevy dudes long for the ’60s. But even back in ’77, if you shopped around you could find nice used Camaros and Chevelles and the like for around two grand. So $6500 really was a lot of money, even for a new car. And with four kids to feed on one income, we weren’t a wealthy family. Just wealthy enough to tithe to St. Mary’s every Sunday, though. It was a different time for sure, and Dad was a completely different, less materialistic animal than his oldest son. Must have been a Depression-era thing.
He wound up trading the Ambassador for a Plymouth Volare wagon with the slant-six, which Google tells me had a base price of $4241. Yet another hair shirt of a vehicle, produced in that terrible era when Detroit hadn’t uncorked the fuel-injection genie and was still trying to make carburetors work with emissions equipment. My poor dad was no mechanic; I learned by doing and may even have introduced him to interchangeable parts. Look, Dad, it’s easier to just buy a new carburetor than to take the whole car to Jerry’s Conoco all the time to try to make that one work.
I was excited as you’d expect when I got the red Triumph Spitfire, followed immediately by being crushed that it was all topped out at about 80 mph. How can a thing look so fast and . . . not be? I got rid of it and followed up with an $1800 hopped-up ’67 SS396 Chevelle, which turned out to be neither an SS nor hopped-up. I had to save up another $600 to get its engine rebuilt; then it really was a beast both of my parents feared. At 18, however, I lacked their grim imagination.
A few short years after we didn’t buy the Mustang, the Army sent me to California, then Colorado, Texas, and Germany. When I finished school, I landed a job at Cycle magazine that moved me to California for good. I started my own family and may have made it back to KC six or 10 times in the next few decades, two of them for my parents’ funerals. One of our regular reminiscences was the red Mustang we didn’t buy. I’d tell my dad what it was currently worth (that it sold in February for $211,000 tells me I might have been on to something). He’d counter with something along the lines of: “You would’ve wrapped it around a telephone pole anyway.” He wasn’t wrong. But first I would have installed headers, glasspacks, traction bars, air shocks, and fuzzy dice.
I’m convinced that BaT Shelby GT500 KR was our GT500 KR, and seeing it pop up on my computer screen was like seeing Dad’s young ghost. That night, I dreamt of the two of us rolling down Red Bridge Road in it with the top down.
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We all have a missed opportunity some where. Mine was a Dino for $15K in 1985 and a Pantera around the same era.
I saw this photo and it is identical to a KR I drove years ago., We did work for a collector and I got to take it our and test drive it. It was worth some money then but no the money it is today.
I know of another near by me. It is hidden away in a garage as the family does not want to sell it. It needs some work but it is all there. Those of us who know where it is all think about it when we drive by that garage.
But even if I passed on the Dino due to the great service work it required and the rust since it would have had to bee a daily driver for a year or two since collage too the rest of my money I passed.
But the other cars I have had were all great cars and held a lot of memories over the years. I also made money on all of them.
My SS was real and it was faster than stock.
I bought my 70 GT350 Shelby vert in 1985 for 13K. I turned down 20K late in 1985. In 1986 visiting family in Colorado Springs went to the Garden of the Gods. There parked was a Dino. Dark green saddle interior with saddle colored driving gloves. I was checking out the car when the “yuppie” couple came back. The guy seemed smug and put on his driving gloves. But he WAS driving a Ferrari. Then I checked out the going price and they were around 20K. I thought “same price as my Shelby”. That was my impression for a long time on Ferrari owners. Boy have those cars gone up over the decades. But so has my Shelby but not as much.
Apparently, whomever spent the $6.5K on it back then resisted the headers, glasspacks, traction bars, air shocks, fuzzy dice, and telephone poles! My dad was similar to yours, but he was fine with allowing me to spend any money I earned on any stupid thing I wanted (after 50% went into my savings account). He
also wasn’t a car guy, but let me work on my junk to learn – “as long as it’s out of the garage before your mother gets home from work” in inclement weather.
I too was never a Mustang person, but a $6500 outlay for a $211,000 sale seems like a pretty nice ROI to me 😄
of course, $6,500 invested in Microsoft stock back then would be worth over $21 million today.
Mine were a 928 for 10K and a XKE for 6K… both of which were out of reach in my high school days… and the XKE was out of reach because the owner flat out told me he would never sell it to a teenager
I imagine neither would have served me well in those days, and I no doubt would not have done right by them
I have a 1984 105 k Black on Black 928 277 CI Power house (235) HP on a good day. Been in an Unheated but protected garage since 1997. Painted back in 04, registered for a year….then College for #1 Child, and she’s been sitting ever since. I have all repair books for all systems automatic 4 speed Benz tranny. With a (Really)banged-up & scavenged parts car also 5k takes the whole package. Also, aftermarket 5 spoke powder coated spoke section, with stainless rims are included (4) I drove it about 1000 miles. great daily driver. She has some issues from sitting for many years, but the motor & tranny both work. I have a few new parts to go with them. Feel free to call. Selling my collection before I shed my Mortal Coil… Take Care David
My first car was a 1958 Impala that I bought from the original owner, family friend. I paid $200 dollars for the car . After I drove it through high school and college I restored it and showed it. By the way I dated my wife in it and took her on are first date to see american grafitti in it. After 50 years I still have both the car and my wife.
Life’s nothing but funny.
Great piece, John. Happy to find you here.
Thanks Greg.
Plus 1, been missing Burnsie’s writing for a while. Glad to see him here.
Ah yes, the Volare. Only car I ever had with bad 318 valve stem seals. The first year had no inner fender liners and the first Spring saw bubbling paint on top of the fenders when they were eaten away already. Chrysler replaced them under warranty, but because they were the first year, didn’t install the next (current) year liners. Next Spring same problem. Same solution. Next year, same problem but lease up and thankfully the car was gone.
Great to read the (in)Famous J P Burns on here. I know you have more crazy stories. Timing Chain?
Let us not speak of that again James.
Just out of high school, working as a janitor, saw a purple car at a gas station. Asked about it, was told it needed a starter and it had a Ford engine. I’m a Chevy guy, so I said no. I could have had an AC for $300 back then……
Give me Fords anyway over Chevy, I’ll even take Mopar. Chevy’s always broke down. Traded a Corvette for a F-350 Super duty 4×4 been more comfortable ever since and it’s never left me stranded. #FORDISTHEREREALLYANYOTHER#
I owned three that I let go but it was the one I didn’t (couldn’t) buy that I really regret. In 1977, I bought a red 1969 Grand Prix with a white vinyl roof and white interior to drive to college. It cost me $500. Then, when the transmission crapped out my sophomore year, I replaced it with a blue 1967 Pontiac Lemans Convertible for $1,200. After I hit a deer and totaled that beauty, I bought a 1965 silver Mustang Coupe (with red interior) for $500. But the one that always haunts me is the one that got away when I was in high school. I had the opportunity to buy a 1970 baby blue Olds Cutlass convertible with the matching rally wheels for $1,200. I didn’t have the money and had to settle for a 1959 army green Chevy Impala sedan which cost me a whopping $125. Man, what I would give to have any of these back but especially that blue Cutlass convertible!!
Hey Doc Back in 1977 I bought a 1970 White 442 Coupe with a 455 4 speed from a Doctor at Carney Hospital in Dorchester Ma. $800.00. I still own her. I put every option I could find on her & back then it was easy to find the parts. W-30 hood, intake, and air filter flapper door.
Red Wheel wells, new paint, Super Stock two wheels, dressed out, and Factory Vinal roof. 13.33 at 106 MPH With street tires. I also have a 65~ 442 Convertible sitting right next to her in my man cave warehouse. I’m 68 and still crusin with them to local shows..I know a few guys with Cutlasses, if you’re interested. dave@rmnmechanical.biz
Out for a ride on my bike in the late 60’s (when kids could actually do that kind of thing) and came across a GT40 parked on the side of the road with a for sale sign for $8000. Not much I could do with paper route money. Have regretted ever since 🙁
Excellent story – thanks for sharing the memories!
Great story! I could see myself in your role as a teen ager. The funny thing is, we had NO car at all until I was 16.
My loss was an immaculate Bright Yellow 1970 DeTomaso Mangusta sitting in a used car lot in McAllen, TX while on a business trip back in 1984.
Price was $20K. I spent 2 days pondering Asset Shifting and Transportation. Still think about it today…
Are you THE John Burns that used to write columns for Motorcyle rags a while back?
GUILTY! Now writing a lot for AMA magazine, American Motorcyclist. Join the AMA and get it monthly!
Mine was an orange 1970 Road Runner Superbird, 440 6-pack, with, belive it or not, a trailer hitch. Thought that’s all I would ever need! It sold at a usd ccar dealer for $5,000 in the early 70’s. Many years later, I asked the retired dealer about it, and his wife said “I remeber that car … we made a lot of money on it” !! So there you go ….