The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

rolling wasn’t as nearly as important as how to keep it rolling (if that was warranted). Chuck also pointed out that the wide, open flat area between the Mustang’s gas cap and the small taillights naturally lent itself to plac- ing a wide, narrow taillight in that space so in many ways, it was simply stylistic common sense. It always seemed that the idea was just one of those things that happened but a short while ago something did come up that may shed some fascinating light (OK, last time, I promise) on the origin of the T-Bird lights idea. One of the earliest-received docu- ments in SAAC’s factory paperwork archives is a copy of an illustrated in- struction sheet showing the steps for installing 1965 Thunderbird taillights on the back of a ’65 Mustang. The doc- ument was old, yellowed, faded and brittle (so much so that it could have easily been passed off as Ben’s original draft of the Declaration). It is an un- usual copy and looked like it was run off on an old (i.e. period 1965) blue- print machine, the kind where a paper was exposed to ultraviolet light, then developed in a bath of ammonia fumes. Personally, I’ve come across it many times, so many that if I had a dime for each time that I stumbled across it and summarily tossed it aside as meaningless, well, I could re- fuse my exorbitant registrar’s salary and still live comfortably. The last time I crossed paths with it was a month or so ago but this time (and this was actually the first time) I gave it more than just a passing glance. It was indeed a step-by-step illustrated process description, not from anything produced by Shelby but rather, it was a page from a magazine. The April, 1965 issue of Rod & Custom , to be The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 76 SFM5010 was designated as one of Shelby American’s “Advanced Prototype” cars when Bill Stroppe installed the ‘Bird taillights on its rear face (which the car still carries to this day). Also visible is another “test feature,” bolt-on headrests, which were briefly considered as a Shelby addition to the Mustang. ( Photo courtesy Tony Conover ) After literally years of running across this faded, wrinkled page, a good look finally revealed that it wasn’t a page from a Shelby Accessories catalog (which is what we always thought) .