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Magazine The Complete Insider's Guide To Collecting
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 From Grand Classics to Twin Stripes of Smoking Rubber 1966 Shelby Mustang
GT350H
Chassis number:
SFM65475 However, once sports-car maestro Carroll Shelby got his hands
on the Mustang, they entered a different league. With subtle but
critical modifications to the chassis and engine, the GT350 went on
to trounce Jaguar E-types on the track and became B-production
National Champions in SCCA racing. Top speed was around 120 mph and
0-60 mph was covered in 6.8 seconds. Even today, nearly forty years
later, GT350s and Mustangs modified to GT350 spec are raced
successfully in everything from the Monterey Historics to the Tour
Auto. You could rent a fully prepared Shelby Mustang from Hertz in
1966, something that seems incredible today given our current safety
and insurance regulations. This car is one of that rental fleet,
designated a GT350H. It
has received a “back to bare metal” cosmetic restoration and has
been painted in the distinctive white with gold stripes—unusual as
most Hertz cars were black with gold stripes. The engine is
reconditioned and has had a recent tune-up. The transmission has
been rebuilt with all the correct parts. It is a beautiful
low-mileage car (76,620 miles on the odometer) that the vendor
describes as “excellent” in every detail. This GT350H sold for $46,000, including buyer’s premium,
at the Bonhams & Brooks Quail Lodge sale, held August 18,
2001. In 1966 Hertz began renting Shelby GT350Hs for $17 per day
and 17 cents a mile. The “H” stood for Hertz, and 936 of them were
built for Hertz to use at rental locations throughout the
country. The majority of GT350H cars were delivered in a standard
format of black paint with gold stripes—Hertz corporate colors. Most
of the cars had automatic transmission, a special oversized brake
master cylinder and a fold-down rear seat. They were equipped, as
were all 1966 Shelbys, with a dash-mounted tachometer, a Plexiglas
rear quarter window and all modifications Shelby used to transform a
standard Mustang into a Shelby. It didn’t take long for the racetracks located close to
rental locations to have visitors in the form of Hertz
“rent-a-racers.” As opposed to the commonplace rental of a Falcon or
a Galaxie, a Shelby GT350H did wonders for the image of the
businessman who could transform himself into a secret agent, a race
car driver or a bon vivant, at least for a week or a weekend. The
GT350H was a “halo car” for Hertz, an opportunity to create a buzz
about the Hertz corporation and its product and
services. Did this stunt pay off? Well, we’re talking about a
35-year-old campaign for a rental car company right now, aren’t we?
And somehow, the glow from a GT350H creates a more favorable
corporate impression than one of Mr. Simpson vaulting over
suitcases. In the early 1970s, when Shelby GT350Hs were just used
cars and I was a high school student, I bought one for the princely
sum of $1,500 from a local used-car dealer. I was employed at the
time by an exotic-car dealer in the Washington, D.C., area. When I
drove the Shelby to work, the owner of the business asked if I could
return the car and get my money back, as he pegged its value at
$1,000 at best. I kept the car for about a year, selling it for somewhere
close to my purchase price. At that time there was no cachét to
owning a GT350H. They were looked down upon by other Shelby owners
as nothing more than ex-rental cars, and therefore not as valuable
as cars with a private ownership history. The ensuing years have
been quite kind to these ex-rental units, though, as they often sell
for nearly as much as their private-owner
brethren. It is quite possible that more 1965 and 1966 Shelby clones
exist now than original Shelby cars were produced. Shelby American
was not only in the car business in the 1960s, it was also in the
business of producing performance parts for Mustang owners. Turning
a fastback 1966 Mustang into a visual clone—one that looks like a
Shelby from a short distance—is an easy process involving less than
a weekend of work. Fakes exist so, as usual, buyer
beware. The Shelby American Automobile Club produces an excellent
book, the Shelby American World Registry, that contains information
about each car, indexed by serial number and updated regularly.
Anyone interested in buying a Shelby who doesn’t perform due
diligence by consulting this book deserves whatever bad things
happen to them. Currently, decent 1966 Shelby GT350H cars sell in the
$35,000 to $48,000 range, with exceptional cars bringing slightly
more and “story” cars bringing less. The sale of this particular
example confirms the current market pricing for a freshly restored,
documented example.—Dave Kinney (Historic data and photo courtesy of auction
company)
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he Mustang
was the first of the pony cars and the most charismatic. When
equipped with a high-performance, 289-cubic-inch, 271-horsepower
engine, they became favorites at the stoplight
drags.