1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake Sells For Rs 15.65 Crore; Becomes Most-Expensive Mustang

The most expensive cars ever sold are never those gleaming machines that come straight off from the showroom floor but are always classic old beauties that are valuable in some or the other way. Case in point is this 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake.

The new 2019 Shelby GT500 revealed at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show is expected to retail at around $75,000 (Rs 53.37 lakh), while the 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake just sold for 2,933% more!

What then makes this 52-year-old car so special that it sold for that high a price? For starters, it is one-off car. In 1967 Carroll Shelby developed this prototype based on the 1976 Ford Mustang Fastback with a plan to put it into production. However, it was too expensive to produce.

The Super Snake cost twice as much as a Shelby GT500 and this is because of what had gone into developing it. Powering the 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake is a hair-raising 7.0-litre V8 engine.

It is the same V8 engine that powered the Ford cars that raced and won at the 24 Hours Of Le Mans that year. It produced a power output of 520bhp. This output figure, even in 2019 is huge. The 2019 Shelby GT500 produces only 200bhp more than its predecessor from half a century ago. This is how fast the car was back then.

Since it was a race-built engine, it could sustain itself at peak power output and do 6,000RPM continuously for hours without breaking a sweat. The 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake also features stiffer suspension for better handling, steel-braided brake lines, an external oil-cooler and a remote oil filter.

How would one recognise a 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake? Of course through the Le Mans stripes on the hood, roof and sides of the car. The chrome headlight surrounds and whitewall GoodYear Thunderbolt tyres are the other differentiating factors.

The biggest factor for the car to have fetched this high a price is that Caroll Shelby himself tested it, drove it and touched a speed of 170mph (273.5km/h) and not many cars in the world can boast of an achievement like that.

The very same car was sold last year by its previous owner for $1.3 million (Rs 9.25 Crore). Now it has beaten its own record of being the most expensive Mustang ever sold, and it seems like this particular car will keep doing this for a long time now.

Thoughts On The Most Expensive Mustang Ever Sold

The Ford Mustang in itself is a very desirable car, and the want to have one becomes several times higher when there is a Shelby badge on it. This particular car though, is almost stellar with its achievements and experiences standing up for it. We cannot wait until the next time this car is sold. Will it sell for a few million more? Only time will tell.

Image Courtesy: Mecum