King of the Road.... [PIC]

Just before I had to trade in my leather fringed hippie vest for jungle fatigues, I was reading all about Shelby's "Top Gun" GT500 KR. I went through the Road and Track article to check out specs and performance. Both the standard GT500 and the Shelby KR came with the Cobra Jet 428. Although the standard 428 was rated at 360HP, the Shelby 428, with its 'in your face, Enzo' "COBRA LE MANS" emblazoned on the valve covers, was rated at 335 HP despite all the performance upgrades to the engine. Well, that was the running joke about listed muscle car horsepower ratings now that insurance premiums were tied to horsepower to weight ratios. The actual output was well over 400 bhp... anywhere from 425 tp 460. I often wondered if the insurance companies bought those bald faced lies, or there were winks and nods on both sides. My personal memory of the Shelby 500KR was somewhere about 1975 when I went across the street to see the neighbor's kid working on his KR. He was bemoaning the fact that he had to take it to a garage to have the engine pulled enough to remove and replace the #8 spark plug. The car was beautiful but my take away was the engine compartment. I had never seen one so packed to the gills, that I doubted I could throw a dime in there and have it hit the ground.

This GMP's convertible variant of the KR and I'm still impressed at how well it's made.