The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

exact. I didn’t have that issue, but thankfully, someone on eBay did and I snagged one for the princely sum of $5 (plus $2 shipping). When it arrived, a quick flip to the article confirmed that it was the exact same page that some- one at Shelby American had copied and filed some 54 years ago. But a closer look revealed that it wasn’t ex- actly the same: the page used to pro- duce the copy had the title and by-line neatly removed before the copy was made. Where on the copy, “ Al Dowd, file, 4/27 ” was scrawled into the white space, the original magazine article carried the title “Custom how/to: ‘Bird blinkers for the Hoss.” The real sur- prise: the brief how-to was written by none other than hot rod “King of the Kustomizers” George Barris! By April of 1965, Barris was already a big name and had already done what was ar- guably one of his most famous ‘TV’ cars, the Munster’s coach; a two-page article in this very issue details the ghoulish hot rod (which, by the way, was powered by a bored and stroked 289, complete with Buddy Bar “COBRA” valve covers!). Let’s examine the timeline: the first Shelby-documented mention of in- stalling ’65 Thunderbird taillights as a means of adding distinctiveness to the GT350 was captured on the third of May, 1965. But the Rod & Custom article appeared in print in the April, 1965 issue; Dowd’s copy of the article was dated 4/27/65, nearly a week be- fore the Shelby staff meeting. And given that magazine lead times of the day were often three months, it is a safe conclusion that George actually installed the T-Bird taillights on the Mustang back in January or February. So is this the ‘smoking gun’ that proves that Shelby American’s (later, Automotive’s) use of Thunderbird tail- lights on a Mustang was originally a George Barris idea? As Cantwell cor- rectly pointed out, the fitment of the Thunderbird taillights could well have been a suggestion developed by Shelby American independent of the maga- zine article. From wherever the idea emanated, it does show that Shelby American was focused on both the per- formance as well as the styling aspects of their product (it also shows that those old, faded documents that keep surfacing sometimes warrant a second look). The SHELBY AMERICAN It was actually a page from a ‘60s hot rod magazine containing a George Barris article on how to customize, by way of installing ’65 Thunderbird taillights on, your ’65 Mus- tang (or perhaps, ’66 GT350). George Barris’ was prolific in the April 1965 Rod & Custom : his Munsters’ coach was a feature and his T-Bird taillight in- stall “how-to” was one of a couple of Bar- ris-related features in that issue. Winter 2021 77