When Ford first started selling Mustangs, sales far exceeded everyone's expectations. The car was clearly Ford's most successful model since the Model T, but Ford execs didn't want to see sales drop off. They quickly called in Carroll Shelby to work some marketing magic on the Mustang marquee through his racing endeavors, much as he previously did for the Blue Oval with his legendary Cobra.
In 1965, Shelby created the GT350, which was campaigned with success in SCCA competition, and was eclipsed only by the Mustang's continued sales success on the showroom floor. Shelby continued to build GT350s (and later GT500s) until 1970, and the cars found themselves in the thick of the Trans-Am battle throughout the latter stages of the muscle car era.
Within a few years, a perfect storm of tighter emission standards, the OPEC oil embargo, and federal motor vehicle safety standards helped spell the end of the muscle car era. As the custom van era took hold, muscle car fans went into hiding, holding out hope that technological advances would some day breathe new life into their passion. The darkest hour is often just before dawn, and it was during that time in 1978 that John Levitz's father noticed this 1966 Shelby GT350 at a Kruse Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona.
When the gavel dropped, his winning bid was $7,500-a staggering sum for that time. There might've been one schmuck at the auction who snickered to himself thinking the elder Levitz just dropped $1,000 more on a 12-year-old Mustang than he'd just spent on a brand-new Cobra II. The truth is $7,500 probably wouldn't come close to covering the commission on a '66 GT350 sold at an auction today.
John's dad drove the car for a few months, but when the summer heat of Arizona set in, he handed the keys to his 16-year-old son, making his way back to the comforts of air-conditioned driving. John soon did what you might expect any 16-year-old to do with such a car-he started collecting speeding tickets. "I can't even remember how many speeding tickets I picked up," John says. "I was one of the first guys in town to have nitrous, back in the late '70s."
Marvin Miller (nephew of Ak) made the kit that John installed on the numbers-matching motor, and although he never ran it on the bottle at the dragstrip, he did his share of racing elsewhere. "The first weekend I put in the nitrous, I cleaned up on everyone who used to beat me," John says. The GT350 continued to be his primary means of transportation all the way through his college years, but upon graduation, it went back into storage.
Riddled with war wounds and showing the 60,000 miles of hard use John had accumulated over the span of just a few years, the GT350 only saw the light of day on rare occasions. "I almost sold it twice," John says, but then one of his friends finally convinced him to take action with the car. "I've known Heath Elmer for a while, and he's always done bitchin resto-mods and just impeccable work," John says. "It was his involvement that was the deciding factor in moving forward on restoring it."
"I always knew John had the car," Heath says, "but it just sat around in an airplane hangar forever. I finally asked him why he wouldn't let me do it, and he told me to take it." The Shelby may be a valuable car, but that didn't mean John felt compelled to do a concours-level restoration. Both men knew the car was too valuable to cut up, so John gave Heath free reign and full artistic license to do whatever he wanted, provided it could all be put back to stock. Even with that agreement in place, the car still sat at Heath's shop for another three years before forward progress was finally made.
John finally decided he wanted the car to appear at the Airaid booth (the company that he owns) at the 2008 SEMA show, so Heath put together a game plan and went into action. The first order of business was stripping the car to a shell, mediablasting it, and prepping the body for a fresh coat of paint.
During this process, the GT350's original Candy Apple Red paint was discovered. Finishing the car in its original hue would've been the correct course of action for an owner contemplating resale, but John had already owned the car for more than 30 years. He liked it in blue, and rather than paint it for someone he might never sell to, he decided to keep it the way it was when he acquired it. The color Ricky Jackson laid down is the correct '66 Sapphire Blue Metallic for GT350s, and was also available on Thunderbirds that year as Bright Blue Metallic.
Both the stock engine and transmission were also rebuilt, but John opted to crate them up for safekeeping. "When we started putting the car back together after paint, we decided it was going to be kind of boring to drive around with the stock Hi-Po and an automatic transmission," Heath says. That would also allow John to drive the car with a clear conscience and not prevent him from stomping on the throttle, for fear of throwing a rod through the valuable block.
To stave off any chance of boredom, John turned to a familiar company and sourced a Dart-based, Roush 353IR crate engine, producing 486 hp and 423 lb-ft of torque. On first glance, the Inglese eight-stack fuel injection sitting atop the Roush motor looks period correct, which was the look Heath wanted. "Hiding all the wiring and fuel injection was by far the hardest part of the build," Heath says. John seems pleased with the outcome. "He kept the engine compartment black and basic, but mixed what appears to be period correct equipment so nicely with modern tech, but not sparkly, shine-in-your-face modern tech," John says.
Selecting a transmission for the Roush motor also proved to be a difficult task. "John really wanted a five-speed, but I didn't want to cut the car up to put a five-speed in it," Heath says. "The only five-speed that would bolt into the car is a T-5 and it wouldn't hold up to the motor." Heath ended up tracking down a correct, date-coded four-speed Top Loader, but there was some debate as to what type of flywheel would be used to mate the transmission to the engine.
Several people tried to talk John out of an aluminum flywheel on a street car, including Heath. "It goes to 6,500 rpm instantly, and it's kind of hard to drive," Heath says. "There's just no mass, so as soon as you let the clutch out, it just grabs and takes off. It's really hard to get used to, but once you do, it's fine." John knows his choice goes against the grain for street cars, but he seems happy with the outcome. "I've never had a lightweight flywheel on a street car before and gosh, is it fun!" John says. "I've always wanted one, because they rev quick, and sure enough, it really is cool." John even made Heath a believer. "The car responds well with it, and I'd do it again on another street car, as long as it had enough motor to pull it."
John admits it takes a certain degree of concentration to hit Second gear without tagging the 6,800-rpm rev limiter, but the experience is well worth the effort. "When Heath handed me the keys after he first drove it, he said it was the fastest-revving car he'd ever driven," John says.
Rolling stock seems to be one of the more high-profile areas of vehicles in recent years, but John elected to keep things low-key in that department. "We had a long debate about the wheels," John says. "Brake upgrades were something I didn't want to do, and Heath said even though the Shelby brakes are bigger, we couldn't put a 17- or 18-inch wheel on the car, because the rotors would just look too small. Instead, John went with stock-sized 15-inch T/A-1s from PS Engineering, surrounded by BFGoodrich g-Force Sport rubber.
The end result has been polarizing. A few Shelby elitists are probably upset John's car isn't just as Carroll built it, but most are not. "The purists get upset when they see the car and look at you with a crossed eye," John says. "Then, there's another faction of people who understand that cars are built to be driven." Count us in the second group!
| BY THE NUMBERS |
| '66 SHELBY GT350 |
| Owner: John Levitz |
| Builder: Heath Elmer Restorations |
| Mesa, Arizona Total cost to build: $50,000-plus |
| ENGINE |
| Type: |
Roush 353IR |
| Block: |
Dart four-bolt, 8.2-inch deck |
| Oiling: |
Melling high-volume adjustable pump, |
| Aviaid 7-quart pan |
| Rotating assembly: |
Eagle forged 4340 |
| steel crankshaft, |
| Wiseco forged pistons |
| with plasma-moly rings |
| and lightweight pins, |
| 10.0:1 compression ratio |
| Cylinder heads: |
Roush/AFR 205 aluminum |
| Camshaft: |
Roush proprietary hydraulic roller |
| Valvetrain: |
2.08-inch intake and 1.600-inch |
| exhaust stainless steel valves |
| Induction: |
Airaid custom-billet air cleaner, |
| Weber-style eight-stack induction system |
| Ignition: |
Mallory Dual Sync distributor |
| with Roush Calibration, MSD wires |
| Fuel system: |
Inglese eight-stack fuel injection, |
| ACCEL DFI, Bosch electric fuel pump |
| Exhaust: |
Doug's 15/8-inch headers, |
| dual 2.5-inch stainless steel exhaust |
| with X-pipe, Borla mufflers, |
| V-band flanges and clamps |
| Cooling: |
Griffin radiator |
| Output: |
480 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque |
| DRIVETRAIN |
| Transmission: |
'66 Ford Top Loader four-speed, |
| Centerforce DFX clutch, |
| aluminum flywheel, |
| Hurst Competition/Plus shifter |
| Rear axle: |
196 Ford 9-inch rearend, |
| 3.50:1 gears; |
| Moser 28-spline axles, |
| ARP 1/2-20 studs |
| CHASSIS |
| Front suspension: |
plated control arms, |
| limiter straps, roller bearings, |
| rod end strut arms, |
| SPAX adjustable shocks |
| Rear suspension: |
Cobra springs, |
| SPAX adjustable shocks, |
| Shelby Under Rider traction bars |
| Brakes: |
11.3-inch Kelsey-Hayes rotors |
| and four-piston calipers, |
| functional front brake ducts, |
| 21/2-inch Ford drums in the rear |
| WHEELS & TIRES |
| Wheels: |
PS Engineering |
| 15x7 front, 15x8 rear |
| Tires: |
BFGoodrich g-Force Sport |
| 205/60R15, front; 215/60R15, rear |