I had dinner with Carroll Shelby in 1997. Among the dozens of things I remember him telling me, the most poignant was when he talked about making great chili. “The secret,” he said, leaning in as though he was about to share the nuclear launch codes, “Don’t mix in too many ingredients. It gets all crowded in there. Make the right ones work.”
Depending how you count them, only 40 parts separate a 1965 GT 350 from a HiPo Mustang fastback. An average vintage car contains as many as 20,000 parts. So when you consider that Carroll Shelby transformed the Mustang with well under one percent of the total parts used to make the car, it is even more phenomenal. The Shelby team truly made the right parts work. But it wasn’t just the parts, nor was it the sum total of the collected impact of those parts. It was the aura, the brand—the Shelby marketing juggernaut—that elevated those 40 parts to legendary status. Today, even if you install identical Shelby parts on a Mustang, it still falls short of “The Real Deal.” 
Nothing says American performance like Carroll Shelby. With his legendary Cobra, Le Mans winning bravado and Chili pot homespun charm, Ford knew they could count on ol’ Shel to cook up a high-performance, race-ready big brother to enhance the already successful Mustang. The 1965 production GT350 was fast, loud and exhilarating to drive, a uniquely brawny American GT that was a performance match against any other machine on the road, American or European. Seemingly an all-out race machine, the production GT350 was really a carefully planned compromise, a streetable allowance toward the car Shelby intended to race – the GT350R, the “R” signifying its racing specification while adding (or deleting) several more parts from the already capable GT350. The GT350R instantly became the template for racers hoping to emulate Shelby’s winning formula but unable to buy one of the rare 34 R type examples built by Shelby American. For a brand new offering, the new Shelby sold considerably well given the high price and untapped market. A total of 504 street cars were built, but the following year that number grew five fold. The advertising campaign, the rise in performance interest, and the desire to drive something more than a “car” had captivated America in a big way. The Mustang frenzy, the British Invasion, the race to the moon, and the marketing of “lifestyle” as a component of success, all contributed to the perfect storm for Shelby American. The “Madmen” of advertising spoke directly to the heart of aspiring young men and women, encouraging them to buy, live, and express themselves in their products and fashion. And, while this was the 1960s, we were still a few years away from long-haired Beatles, anti-war protests and colorful counter-cultural idealism. A suit-and-tied Carroll Shelby accented by a perky gal in Capri pants said it all. Buy this car and fulfill your fashionable performance dreams. 
The GT350 was truly an inspired design, achieved collectively by low-cost alterations and important performance marketing. Stance, stripes and scoop delivered an immediate racing impression when viewing the 1965 GT350. These three elements alone carry the brand message—hunkered down with longitudinal racing and rocker stripes, and a functional hood scoop. White and blue were iconic in the racing scene, but white was also the visual reference for science and technology. Virtually every U.S. rocket in development was white, lab coats were white, technology was clean and simple, not cluttered with chrome or fussy trim. The new Shelby was white collar with a hint of blue collar stripes. Under the hood, the raw cast valve covers and oil pan eschewed fussy secondary finishes in place of honest, machined functionality. The black side exit pipes and satin black interior further delivered the theme of purposeful integrity as part of the functional fashion that aspiring enthusiasts associated with the racing scene. Performance lap belts and wood-rimmed steering wheel, accented by an add-on tachometer, confirmed the outside invitation for speed was fulfilled once strapped in, steering in hand and power on tap. 
The total Shelby picture invited not only the aspirations of performance and pleasure, it gave many of the buttoned-up managers and young executives of “the system” a bona fide reason to break out of the uptight molds of their day-to-day lives. The GT350 became not only a symbol of American potential, it was a statement of youthful success, brash performance marketing and a big part of the looming motorsports smackdown Ford was about to extract on Ferrari—just one of many ways to make an Italian cry.
Today, the Shelby brand lives on in countless versions of Mustang performance offerings with horsepower nearly triple the amount of the original cars, and skidpad results that test the skills of even the most capable drivers. But it all began in the hands of a man in bib overalls, with 40 parts and a simple recipe. One that endures today in the 1965 Shelby GT 350, seasoned to perfection, as fresh and flavorful as it was more than 50 years ago when ‘ol Shel fired up his skillet and mixed up a potent batch of performance—one that keeps bringing enthusiasts back for more.
