Shelby fanatics have waited more than four decades for a new GT350. Beginning in 1965, Ford Mustang GT fastbacks rolled into the Shelby American facility near Los Angeles International Airport. Carroll Shelby and his band of racers, mechanics, fabricators, and engineers then turned them into legend. Ford took over the Shelby Mustang program for 1968, and it was all over just two years later. Ever since Ford and Shelby got back together (for the Shelby-built GT-H Hertz rental program in 2006 and the Ford SVT-produced GT500 beginning in 2007), people have asked the question: “When will the GT350 return?”
The answer is: Now.
The 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 has made it possible. This Camaro fighter, packing all the design revisions and hardware upgrades of the 2010 model plus Ford’s new 5.0-liter, DOHC, all-aluminum V-8, gave today’s Shelby American (formerly Shelby Automobiles) the foundation it needed to reseed the icon. It’s white-with-blue-stripes time, all over again.