ps374

Was the 65 Shelby GT 350 a better performance car than the 65 327 Corvette? I remember as a youngster seeing the Shelby's at the local Ford dealer on Long Island. One of the few Cobras dealers in New York. I was shocked to see the sticker price of $4,000. That was Corvette territory and the car had no hub caps , stripes etc. That was all extra. Yet the Ford people claimed this Mustang was created to beat the Corvette at its own game in performance and handling. Anyone have any input on what the better car was?

Donny Brass

I think I speak for the entire Corvette Forum when I say the Corvette was the better car...........

the early Mustangs rode horrible and the 289 hipo was no match for the 327s........

65 vette dude

65 mustang 289 271 hp turned 15.5 sec at 89 mph. The Shelby GT 350 was really a different animal. They handled pretty good and had a 306 hp version of the 289 HiPo. They ran very good at 14.9 @ 96 mph. If it had the rare Paxton supercharger option,the Mustang turned a very respectful 14.0 @ 92mph. I don't think much of Fords in general,but I think the little 289 hipo,was probably the all around best motor that Ford ever made.

wmf62

Bill

67pete

The GT 350 was / is a great handling car. It is about 400 pounds lighter than the Corvette, but it is not a Corvette!

ghoastrider1

The old Shelbys Mustangs were not feared by any of the "local" boys with hot-roded engines. Nor did folks with the higher performance Corvette engines give them much thought.There were the occassional fast, hot rod "stang", but they were rather rare. I still dont like them... except the early 2+2..Vettes handled way better.

w1ctc

I found it interesting that the new Mustangs are now about 700lbs
more than a new Corvette.

capevettes

I had a 65 Shelby GT 350 in 1971 which was stolen 6 months after I bought it. I never saw it again. I then bought my 65 Corvette 327/350, which I still own. I always felt the Vette was the quicker car and also handled better than the Shelby. I still love the look of the early Shelbys and always look for that old car whenever I see one at a show.

Tintin

There were no 2+2 early GT 350s at all. They had two seats and were specifically made to compete in SCCA B production against the Corvettes. They easily won virtually every race they entered and the National Championship that year against the Corvettes.

http://www.unfairadvantageracing.com/careerinfo.html

After the initial year in which a few hundred were made they became less of a race car and more of a street car and by 1968 . Shelby had no more input into the cars other than his name as they were option packages from Ford and made in Michigan, not Long Beach.

Ironically when the new series in 1966, the SCCA Trans American Challenge came into being the GT350 was not eligible because it was not a 4 seat car. Mustang was the TransAm champ in 66 just the same as the GT350R parts were put into 16 notchback cars. My vintage car is an exact replica of the winning car which I built for $465,000 less than buying the original beat-up racer...

So to answer your question, the original 1965 GT350 was far superior in handling , braking and power to the cars it was made to compete against, ours.

They are about $225,000 now for a good one . They were $45,000 in 2002 when I turned one down None are less than $175,000 now if they are real, there are a ton of clones and I would not buy one without calling these guys as they know where almost every one of them is today:

http://www.saac.com/

Red63SW

Having owned two early Mustang fastbacks, I can say the suspension is lousy. All Shelby did was relocate the upper control arm mounting points to improve it. The 289s are great motors for a mild street car, but need a lot of work to compete with a Chevy, in my estimation. I give the edge to the Corvette.

That being said, the 65 GT350 still has a special place in my heart, since I'm actually a Ford guy that dabbles in Chevys. So much so that my to-be-restored 65 fastback is going to be a 65 GT350 cosmetic clone with twice the original horsepower and better suspension. However, if I had to choose between selling my 63 SWC and the 65 GT350 clone, I wouldn't have to think about it. I'd sell the Mustang. Mid-years all the way!

MikeM

Couldn't argue a bit with what Tintin' said. However, there's miles of difference between cars prepared for the track and off the showroom floor. There were several Shelby's around home when they were new. In a drag race, they were about equal to a GTO or a 327/300 hp mid-year. Now if the Shelbys had a little prep, the results could have been different but same could be said for the Vette and the Goat.

A buddy built a '61 Falcon with a 289 hi-po engine. Had the Shelby 2 X 4 intake and camshaft. Headers and a 9 inch Ford axle. Small drag slicks tucked inside the wheelwells. It was quick once it quit spinning the tires. You could go into third gear at 80 mph and light up the back tires to the point it'd make you get both hands back on the wheel. We had a lot of fun with that car. It was a sneaker. He couldn't touch my similar Chevy though. It was a '65 Nova SS with a 327/375 with FI in it. It's hard to beat the cubic inches.

smart_art

Before I say anything else, I love the C2... Also, I've never driven a GT-350, though I rode in one that had been "run hard and put away wet", and was not that impressed. The street differences between a C2 and a GT-350 or Cobra are night-and-day-- I can't imagine driving either Ford offering for more than an hour or so without being uncomfortable.

I can't speak for back-in-the-day on the street, but from SCCA results, the Shelbys (both the Mustang and the Cobra) whipped the Corvettes on a regular basis in SCCA A-Production and B-Production. Badly, I must add.

1962 was the last A-Production championship for Corvette until 1969 (AC Cobra), and 1964, or the year previous to the GT-350, was the last B-Production championship for Corvette...

Specific to B-Production and the GT-350:
http://www.sportscarmarket.com/profi...ace/index.html

So, to answer the question, the 327 Corvette was no match for either Shelby offering.

A good question is this-- I know that the L-88 of '66 and '67 did not fare that well against the 427 Cobra, and the DeLorenzo and Thompson successes in '68 - '71-ish was basically after the 427 Cobra was over. By '68 - '69, what was the Corvette's main competition? I believe the Corvette began competing in GTO-class racing after '70, so this would have been Porsche and Ferrari, correct? But what was between the Cobra and the GTO racing?

glenn64vette

I grew up a FORD guy. I had a 66 GT350 in 1980. I had the 64 vette then also. Drove both, have to give a slight edge to the C2. The Shelby was a great car to drive. It did everything well.

But the Vette has the edge.

Don Keefhardt

Currently vintage-race a '65, and I describe it simply:

"Think of a '61 Falcon with waaaaay too much horsepower....that's what you've got here. It's a drunken pig on stilts..."

You have to do a WHOLE bunch of stuff to get those Mustang chassis' to handle. LOTS. Ackerman tweaks, major voodoo with the rear suspension/axle-location (think: Watts link, think: Alfa sliding block, etc etc.), major $$$ shocks (I"m about $6K deep in shocks and I'm still not satisfied).

Very cool-looking car...I love the way it looks, and I like racing it, but the Mustang is a hideously-handling wallowing pig. The fast ones that you see racing in vintage classes are a loooooong way from the way they rolled out of the showroom. Really. Trust me on this.

Shurshot

Other than an older kid in high school I never had much exposure to the early 350's. However in the late 70's I did something on the street with a 500 Shelby. Before that I kinda liked them but when I became aware of how inferior they were to the L72 vette in performance I was no longer impressed.

However their value in todays dollars is very impressive but unless they were something special to you back then, a midyear is still the better buy today just as it was back then............. and as before the vette still makes roadkill out of them

Doug

bweaver999

Interesting note on how little has changed. Just bought an 07 V6 Stang for my wife. In looking, saw new Cobra's with a sticker of over $40K and hear you can't get them for less than $10-20K over sticker. Also saw Foosed and Roush versions in the $40-$50K range. Even have Saline's that start at $60K and saw one with a $90K sticker ($17K for paint). I wonder how their re-sale will hold up vs a new Vette? They are clearly still selling Stangs in the Vette price range, or at least trying to. Don't think I could spend that kind of money on a car that is basically still a new Stang!! I do have th say, Ford did a great job on the new ones though. You get a real nice car in the mid $20's that is fun to drive. Not as much fun as my C2 but still fun.

63 340HP

It's depends on what you value in performance: a race car, or a grand touring car.

A lifelong friend of my father has a 65' Mustang notchback that was prepared by Shelby in San Jose during preliminary production runs for the GT350's. It has all the documentation from Ford in Fremont, to Shelby in San Jose, and has the normal GT350 chassis and engine modifications (including the chassis dyno sheets from Shelby recording 306 hp). It's has a full pony interior and rallypac accessories, but the driveline is fairly close in configuration to a GT350 (289, top loader, the nodular 9" with detroit locker and 4.11 gears, the shock tower engine cross bar, etc.). The notchback has a rear seat, so it can haul more people than a Sting Ray. The one true advantage the Mustang/GT350 has over a C2 is weight. It scales well under 3000# (even with full interior). The ride is much harsher than a C2, and the brakes are not nearly as linear as a disk brake C2 (the Mustang has big drums on the rear axle). In unmodified form (uncut or unrolled fenders) the light weight of the GT350 grants it a braking and acceleration advantage, including coming off turns (and if I remember the Detroit rear axle steer favors left turn oversteer when you finally get into the throttle).

The harsh ride is what I remember the most because sitting in the seat there was almost zero jounce compliance (you were into the rear bumpstops over any crack in the road and with almost any chassis lean). On the road I would expect the harsh ride would get old fast. The live rear axle and detroit locker also made for fun on/off-throttle handling (rear axle steer), one reason why the rear bumpstops were lowered (to keep the leading half of the reworked leaf packs level to minimize the axle steer, and to avoid adding a Panhard rod or Watts linkage). The car would understeer until you felt the outside corner set on the rear bumpstop when it would go neutral, and then you would ease into the throttle to set the locker and feel the rear axle go right (kind of a different neutral feel), and then any kind of a hard throttle stab would break the tires loose into oversteer. It took a lot of concentration and attention to keep the car headed in the right direction.

Both the GT350 and Sting Ray are limited on tire width by the body & fender contour. The original skinny tires offered minimal traction in anything other than a straight line. Even with rolled fender lips the Mustang was a tight fit with 225/60/14's on 6" rims, closer than a stock C2 is with 225/60/15's on 7" rims. Once the fenders are massaged to fit wider rubber I expect the cornering weight advantage of the GT350 would be diminished (but by then the dollars spent in modifications to improve other areas would continue to favor the GT350 on a clean track).

The lower weight helps the GT350 from a race performance aspect, and the extra weight and IRS helps the Sting Ray ride comfort from a grand touring performance standpoint. If racing is the performance gage the GT350 probably has (and had) an advantage, but for all around driving the Sting Ray offers more street friendly fun (why I purchased one).

Tintin

The Corvette is a much more supple car. BTW my vintage racer weighs in at 2800 lbs with a full interior and a roll bar and has 400 hp. It is pretty brutal overall, the vette is better if you are spreading the Grey Poupon...

mts7900

Being a Corvette forum, I know we all love our Vette's. However, from a racing car standpoint, Shelby did a lot more than than adjust the upper control arms. SCCA rules only allowed modification for either the motor or the suspension, but not both. Shelby's race motors gave the GT350R's the edge in weight:hp ratio, producing more than 350hp with less than 2550 lbs. And the proof-in-the-pudding is in the race results with the GT350R taking First place overall 3 consecutive years in SCCA class B, starting in 1965.

But, I still love my Corvette.

65 vette dude

When I was youngster,I was strictly a Chevy guy and really hated Fords. But now that the muscle car era is long gone,plus the fact that I guess I have mellowed somewhat with age,I have grown to appreciate all the great cars of that era....even Fords.