The Incredible Engineering of the 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 KR
Car Junkies
1,975 views
The Incredible Engineering of the 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 KR
February 3rd, 1968. Pomona, California. The NHRA Winternationals.
A white Mustang rolls to the starting line in the Super Stock class, and the man behind the wheel, Al Joniec, is staging a car that Ford's own engineers barely had time to finish testing before it shipped west. Six of these Mustangs made the trip that week, all painted Wimbledon White, all wearing the same small badge on the fender: 428 Cobra Jet. Ford had never won a Super Stock Eliminator title. Not once, not in any year, against any competitor. And the company had bet that reputation on a rushed batch of cars built around an engine combination that didn't come out of a corporate research lab at all. Joniec brings up the revs. The tree drops. The tires bite the strip. And somewhere under that fiberglass hood, an engine assembled from a mix of police-cruiser parts and pieces salvaged from Ford's Le Mans-winning race program screams toward six thousand rpm and a moment that would reshape what the word "Mustang" meant for the rest of the decade.
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The Incredible Engineering of the 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 KR
Car Junkies
1,975 views
The Incredible Engineering of the 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 KR
February 3rd, 1968. Pomona, California. The NHRA Winternationals.
A white Mustang rolls to the starting line in the Super Stock class, and the man behind the wheel, Al Joniec, is staging a car that Ford's own engineers barely had time to finish testing before it shipped west. Six of these Mustangs made the trip that week, all painted Wimbledon White, all wearing the same small badge on the fender: 428 Cobra Jet. Ford had never won a Super Stock Eliminator title. Not once, not in any year, against any competitor. And the company had bet that reputation on a rushed batch of cars built around an engine combination that didn't come out of a corporate research lab at all. Joniec brings up the revs. The tree drops. The tires bite the strip. And somewhere under that fiberglass hood, an engine assembled from a mix of police-cruiser parts and pieces salvaged from Ford's Le Mans-winning race program screams toward six thousand rpm and a moment that would reshape what the word "Mustang" meant for the rest of the decade.
64 Ford built the Fairlane 427 T-Bolts for the Drag strip . . .
66 & 67 427 8V was an Option when you ordered a Fairlane or Camet which was an expensive option . . .
ALL existed long before the C-J . . .
So much BS in these AI stories . . . .
GM was going to use the name "King of the Road" . . . & Shelby borrowed and registered it before they did . . . .
Every CJ did not have staggered shocks . . . mine did not, and have seen several others that were not so equipped.
The 68 GT 500KR had 65 T-Bird Tail lights . . . the 67 had Cougar Tail lights . . . . try to get something correct.
The CJ head were not the same used on the Le Mans cars . . . they were the Low Riser Heads !
I have had a long relationship with an "R" 68 car and it even has a KR on the fender . . . .