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Photos courtesy Mecum Auctions.
One hundred seventy miles per hour might be nothing for a modern supercar, but in 1967 not every car could lay claim to that speed. One that could, the one-of-one Shelby G.T. 500 Super Snake, will cross the block this spring.
As the story goes, the Super Snake project came about when Carroll Shelby asked Shelby American’s chief engineer Fred Goodell to put together a car for demonstrating the high speed durability of Goodyear “Thunderbolt” budget-priced passenger car tires. Goodell apparently decided to give Goodyear’s modest whitewalls a serious workout, and outfitted a G.T. 500 with a LeMans-spec racing engine: aluminum heads, aluminum intake, aluminum water pump, solid lifter camshaft, 780 Holley, unique “bundle of snakes” headers, etc. Otherwise the car was a standard issue GT500 except for an unusual (for Shelby) Guardsman Blue stripe treatment with one 10-inch band flanked by two 3-inch stripes.
Ol’ Shel wowed the media with the Super Snake at a Goodyear press event in March of 1967, taking journalists for 150 MPH spins around the tiremaker’s test facility near San Angelo, Texas, before turning the car over to Goodell. Goodell then drove the Super Snake, shod with garden-variety Goodyears, 500 miles averaging 142 MPH and hitting speeds as high as 170 MPH.
It’s unclear whether a plan to sell 50 Super Snake G.T. 500s to the public was an afterthought or whether the original car was built with that in mind. Whichever the case, the engine was deemed too expensive to sell in a street car and no more were built. (Two other 427-powered 1967 G.T. 500s were built, but they weren’t designated Super Snakes.)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The car has about 26,000 miles on the clock and is currently owned by Richard Ellis, an Illinois collector of rare Shelby race cars who purchased it in 2008.
“I wanted to own this piece of Shelby history more than anything,” Ellis said. “It was well cared for by its previous owners, but I’ve put a lot of effort into returning it to the state it was in on the day of the tire test. Now it is time to allow another collector or museum the opportunity to be the caretaker of what is the most unique and historically significant Shelby Mustang every built. I have enjoyed it a great deal and now it is time to move on.”
Ellis’s website dedicated to the car, SuperSnake.org, includes a number of historical photos of the Super Snake, along with a video of the tire test:
Mecum’s Indianapolis auction will take place May 14-19 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. For more information, visit Mecum.com.
UPDATE (20.May 2013): The Super Snake sold for $1.3 million.