To start in the beginning, the GT350 you see here was built to go fast and not look back. Dressed out in Ivy Green and factory Cragar wheels, it came away from the Shelby facility missing some things-and these were omitted quite intentionally. According to Jerry Clement, the car was destined to race, since it came with radio delete as well as heater delete. The rest of the car is standard Shelby, which is to say quite an exceptional car.
Under the hood resides the solid lifter 289 HiPo with the Shelby add-ons of Tri-Y headers, Cobra aluminum intake and valve covers, and the specially prepped 715 cfm carburetor. Behind the stout little 289 was the T-10 Borg Warner four-speed-a holdover from 1965. Rearward of that was the 3.89 Detroit no-spin diff. At the corners were the special Cragar SS wheels and Goodyear Blue Dot tires. It was sold new at Town Motors to a local Inglewood, New Jersey, resident who must have pressed the go pedal a quarter mile at a time according to the 28,000 mile odometer reading.
From Jersey, the Shelby bopped its way out to the Idaho region where it did some time before returning to Detroit and more racing on Woodward Avenue. There are no reports of how it fared on the street. From there it meandered over to Stacey restoration in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Jerry managed to pick it up after selling his Boss 302.
Now let's move ahead to the hard part. To restore a GT350 to Gold Trailered status today takes work. New old stock (N.O.S.) parts have to be located-phone bills can mount to the point that companies like MCI, AT&T, and Verizon start sending you "thank you" cards and well wishes in the holiday season, personally signed by the company president. After you manage to find the parts, there is the small matter of financing them. Some items can practically bankrupt a project before it even starts.
Though Jerry wasn't bankrupted by his car, he undertook the restoration of this jaw-dropping Ivy Green '66 GT350.
"The restoration took about six years," he said. "While the body and paint were being done at Stacey's Restoration in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I was chasing down N.O.S. parts and restoring all the chassis and body components."
What Jerry did with his money is awesome. It stopped us in our tracks at the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC) Spring Fling at Abe Martin State Park in Nashville, Indiana. No expense had been spared-in time, effort, or finance. So now Jerry, upon completion of the green monster from the Shelby factory, is loath to drive the car. Yet the old beast begs to be driven-and Jerry hears the call every time he starts the engine. Imagine the torture: all that green and you have to trailer it. As far as we are concerned, Jerry is justified in trailering the Shelby. Why? Because it serves as a tribute to the Shelby legend.