The Only One – 1967 Shelby GT 500 Convertible

When you have the only one ever built, you might have trouble convincing people that it is real. It’s a particular problem when what it looks like really isn’t what it is. That’s what Brian and Samantha Styles face every time they take their 1967 GT 500 convertible to a show.  From 10 feet away it looks like your average 1968 Shelby GT convertible. Lift the hood or look at the interior, and it’s all 1968. However, a closer inspection of the Shelby fiberglass shows hand-built prototype components foreign to both model years. Confused? Even well-informed Shelby enthusiasts will do a double-take. When Brian Styles, who refers to himself as the car’s caretaker and historian, tells them that Samantha’s car is actually a 1967, they immediately reject his claim. Everyone knows there are no 1967 Shelby GT 500 convertibles.  Well, there is one, and this is its story.

The effort Brian Styles puts into convincing classic car enthusiasts this car is just what it is pales in comparison to the effort he expended to figure out what it actually looked like during its life. When equally enthusiastic Samantha Styles acquired the car in May 2009, he undertook an investigation involving a “dream team” that included noted Shelby experts and former employees of both Shelby American and Ford Motor Company. It was a group effort to determine what was true and what was rumor about the car’s history and its styling. There was a lot of discussion and even an occasional disagreement or two, but at the end of the effort, everyone on the team endorsed the result—the car that was shown at the 2013 Concours d’Elegance of Texas.