How One Family Rebuilt a Basket-Case Shelby GT500

The Oehmke clan calls Michigan home, so a love of things automotive is their birthright, and the sleek Silver Jade ’69 Mustang Shelby GT500 pictured here is a product of that passion.

Michigan automakers and suppliers have had their ups and downs, with the local industry experiencing both great years and punishingly bad years over the last half century. But through it all, the Great Lake State has proudly remained car country. Many of the folks you meet in metro Detroit either build cars, make parts for cars, sell cars, repair cars, race cars, or dream of cars. Car folk constitute a huge chunk of the population in the southeast corner of the state—right under the thumb of the Michigan Mitten. The Oehmkes—Dawn, Mark, and their sons Fred, Charles, and Alexander—are exuberantly part of that driven demographic.

Charles Oehmke and his brother Fred own this striking Shelby Mustang, but it would never have come together without the help of their dad. Charles told me that although his and Fred’s names are on the car’s title, the restoration of this pretty pony car was not just the work of the two brothers; Dad was the instigator and guide. Mark Oehmke is retired now, but he was and is a committed car guy. He held a number of industry jobs, including stints with Ford and other car companies. He’s owned and restored numerous muscle cars and various interesting vehicles, and both of his older sons helped him work on cars as soon as they were old enough to pick up a wrench. Their mom, Dawn, is a fan of older classic cars. Younger brother Alexander pitches in and attends car shows with his brothers. All three Oehmke sons have earned advanced graduate degrees. Charles and Fred have put their education to work in the car biz, Fred as a Stellantis engineer, Charles as general Mmanager of Nikolas Motorsports, a metro Detroit shop specializing in BMW and Porsche repairs and restorations.

Charles, now 35, says he first picked up a wrench at the age of 12, helping his dad and older brother with the restoration of an El Camino. He bought his first car, a mechanically challenged ’74 Charger, as soon as he was old enough to drive and rebuilt the powertrain with help from the rest of the family. “Dad was a good teacher,” says Charles. “We had a lot of fun doing that car.” So, in 2011 when Mark had a chance to buy a ’69 Shelby GT500 from a Mustang collector who had put the disassembled car “on the shelf,” he decided it would be a good family project. That marked the beginning of an engaging, entertaining, sometimes difficult, and quite lengthy step-by-step restoration process.

Ford’s ’69 Shelby GT500 was among the last Mustangs that benefited from the Ford/Shelby American partnership. The ’69 Mustangs were the first of the long Mustangs, with a full 3.8 inches more overall length than the ’68 models. The Shelby GT500, with an imposing “loop” bumper and grille, was longer still. To fans of the car, that length gave it a sleek and powerful presence. The 335-horsepower Cobra Jet version of Ford’s venerable 428-cid FE V-8 engine made it a muscular mover. With only 1546 copies of the ’69 GT500 fastback produced, it is not a car that is seen frequently today.

To call the Shelby Mustang that Mark Oehmke and his sons hauled home in 2011 a basket case would be charitable, since some of the part baskets were less than full and critical pieces were missing. Furthermore, the body looked like it had been through “Baghdad and back,” says Charles. The rear quarters appeared to have been sloppily welded onto the unibody skeleton. The fiberglass parts that graced all ’69 Shelby 500s—front fenders, hood, deck lid, mirrors, and the functional side scoops—were rough but present and salvageable. With much resin and mat work needed, the Oehmkes took the body to a fiberglass pro: Scott’s Collision Center & Auto Body in Belleville, Michigan. Scott put the body on a rotisserie and started the long and arduous task of making it as perfect as possible. When the sheetmetal and fiberglass imperfections had been repaired, Scott finished the shapely Mustang in the original Silver Jade.

Charles says that not all fiberglass imperfections were eliminated during the restoration, because one apparent glitch—the fit of the fiberglass hood—was standard equipment. Photos of original Shelby 500GTs appear to confirm that the hood rides a bit above the edges of the front fenders. Thus, an authentic restoration should reflect this.

While Scott was restoring the sheetmetal and fiberglass, the Oehmkes went about the business of ensuring that every other component was on hand and as perfect as they could make it. They rebuilt the engine, replacing all wear parts with factory originals. When they encountered a cracked cylinder head, they managed to find a replacement with the correct date code. The carburetor, a somewhat rare Holley 735-cfm 4-barrel, was missing, but they eventually found an authentic date-coded replacement.

The car had spent much of its life in boxes and showed only a documented 33,000 miles on the clock, so the interior was in very good condition. Only the headliner had to be replaced and the dash repainted. Early on in the rebuild process they shipped the glovebox door off to the Shelby Foundation, and Carroll Shelby signed it. 

Once the car was on wheels, the Oehmkes were able to use lifts and other equipment at Charles’s place of employment, Nikolas Motorsports, to complete some undercar work. David Nikolas, shop owner, motorsports veteran, and master of all things automotive, pitched in from time to time. The restoration was completed just days before the 2023 Woodward Dream Cruise, and the Oehmke brothers did Woodward in style, following up at the Mustang Memories show at Ford headquarters in Dearborn where their newly minted machine won its class.

“Our goal from the beginning was a thoroughly accurate restoration and a finished result that was as close to concours as possible,” says Charles.

Meanwhile, Mark and Dawn had moved down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to be close to her family in their retirement years. So, while the brothers had begun working alongside the guy who had taught them how to wield wrenches and make broken stuff whole again, Dad was no longer there when the Mustang was ready for the road.

With a deep-seated need to show their father the finished product and give him some seat time, the brothers trailered the car to Mississippi. “When he first laid eyes on the car he broke out in a huge smile,” Charles recalls. “With dad sharing the driver’s seat, we did the eight-day Cruisin’ the Coast bash. It’s like eight Dream Cruises back-to-back, so it was the perfect conclusion to a great 12-year family adventure.”