The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

he factory history of 5S003 has been pretty well researched. The car was one of a group of three Mustang fastbacks ordered on Sep- tember 16, 1964. They were built in se- quential serial number order on or about October 26, 1964 and sent to Shelby American from Ford’s San Jose assembly plant to be built as proto- types for the new GT350. They were “knockdown” units, built with parts deleted which would otherwise have had to be removed and discarded – things like the rear seat, front seat belts, hood/hood letters, hood latching mechanism, grille running horse, cor- ral and horizontal spears. The cars were required to be driven off the end of the assembly line to a marshaling area prior to shipping, so Ken Miles was unable to include the elimination of the intake manifold, carburetor, ex- haust system, sway bar and shock ab- sorbers. They were replaced during production and the take-off parts were either sold or scrapped. For the two cars intended to be com- petition cars, the interior upholstery, dash pad, carpeting, sound deadener, side windows, cranking mechanisms and rear seats were deleted. Once the cars arrived at Shelby’s Venice facility, work on them began immediately. Since the street prototype required the least amount of work it was finished first, so it is properly the first GT350. One of the first things that was done was to write the serial number on each car’s firewall in red magic marker so the cars could be kept straight during production: SFM5001, SFM5002 and SFM5003. 5001 was written on the firewall of the proposed street car; the other numbers were put on the two competition cars (at that time there had yet to be an “S” or “R” designation). The cars would not re- ceive hand-stamped Shelby serial number plates until mid-year 1965 when they were moved from Venice to the LAX facility and the street car was prepared for sale. At the time the plates were put on the cars, Chuck Cantwell recalled that when he discovered they were on the wrong cars it was of little concern. The street car was supposed to be 001 but it received the 5S003 plate and the other two cars received 5R001 and 5R002. If things had gone as Cantwell envisioned, the street car would have been 001, the first competition car would have been 002 (it was num- bered correctly, albeit purely by coin- The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 29 Past, Present and Future History – Rick Kopec T Carter Street photo. Note incorrect spacing in GT350 characters and blank center caps. AM radio was added – note antenna.