In the grand, saga of American muscle cars, most chapters are loud, poorly behaved, and absolutely magnificent. But every now and then, something truly ridiculous happens.
Something so berserk, so unreasonably potent, that it doesn’t just make the other cars look timid — it makes them look like traffic. Enter, stage left, the 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake.
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A transcript, cleaned up via AI and edited by a staffer, is below.
[Image: YouTube Screenshot]
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Transcript:
In the grand saga of American muscle cars, most chapters are loud, unruly, and magnificent. But every now and then, something truly ridiculous appears—so extreme that it doesn’t just make other cars look tame, it makes them look like traffic. Enter the 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake.
This wasn’t just a Mustang with a big engine. It was a Mustang with the engine: the same 427-cubic-inch V8 that had just spent 1966 humiliating Europe at Le Mans in the Ford GT40 Mk II. This wasn’t a detuned version or a production variant dressed up with racing stickers. It was the very same fire-breathing monster that powered a car to victory at the most grueling endurance race on earth, now wedged into the front of a Ford coupe.
To understand why this Frankenstein machine came to be, you need to look at Carroll Shelby. By 1967, Shelby had already gone from chicken farmer to racing driver to performance car legend. His GT350 and GT500 Mustangs had transformed Ford’s pony car from a secretary’s runabout into something far more formidable. But Shelby wasn’t just Ford’s performance guru—he was also Goodyear’s West Coast tire distributor. So when Goodyear wanted a stunt to promote its new Thunderbolt line of economy tires, they came to him. Shelby decided that demonstrating the durability of budget whitewalls required a 650-horsepower Le Mans-winning V8 and a Mustang capable of 170 mph.
The test car was a white 1967 GT500. Shelby’s chief engineer, Fred Goodell, was told to make it as fast as possible. Goodell installed a racing-spec 427 V8 with aluminum heads, forged internals, Le Mans connecting rods, and a heavy-duty cooling system. He added an external oil cooler, remote oil filter, modified exhaust, and created a soundtrack that shook the ground.
Power figures remain debated—some say 650 horsepower, others closer to 520—but either way it was more than double what most cars made in 1967. Goodell also prepared the chassis for the Goodyear test track in Texas. He stiffened the suspension, fitted traction bars, added a Detroit Locker differential, and upgraded the brakes with heavy-duty components. This wasn’t just a stunt car; it was a genuine endurance machine. Then, they mounted economy whitewall tires.
On test day, Shelby himself took the Super Snake out first, hitting 170 mph. For the endurance run, Goodell drove the car flat-out for 500 miles—on tires meant for a family station wagon. Against all odds, the tires survived, helped by nitrogen inflation for stability. The stunt worked. The Super Snake proved the tires’ durability, Goodyear got headlines, and Shelby created a one-off legend.
There were attempts to build more. Don McCain, a former Shelby salesman, pitched the idea of a limited run to a California dealership. But the price was the problem. With the racing engine and custom parts, the Super Snake cost more than two regular GT500s—and even more than a Ferrari 275 GTS/4 Spider. Buyers weren’t interested, and the project ended after just one car.
The Super Snake passed through multiple owners before collector Richard Ellis restored it with painstaking accuracy, down to the wiring, hoses, wheels, and even a set of the original Thunderbolt tires. In 2019, it sold at auction for $2.2 million.
The 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake remains one of a kind. It was a car that tried to tame a Le Mans-winning engine on budget tires, a machine that defied logic and reason. It wasn’t built for focus groups or committees—it was Carroll Shelby, an engine built for war, and a tire company with something to prove. It’s more than just a car; it’s a monument to audacity.
