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The automotive designer and racing star Carroll Shelby once told a story about his relationship with the Ford Motor Company, saying, “In 1964, when Lee Iacocca said, ‘Shelby, I want you to make a sports car out of the Mustang,’ the first thing I said was, ‘Lee, you can’t make a race horse out of a mule. I don’t want to do it.’ He said, ‘I didn’t ask you to make it; you work for me.’”
It seems paradoxical, but this story shows us why the Shelby-Ford partnership began and also why it ended. Shelby clearly looked down on the Mustang, calling it a “mule,” but Iacocca was a force to be reckoned with, and he didn’t like taking “no” for an answer. This brings us to the 1970 Shelby Mustang.
Oddly enough, all the 1970 Shelby Mustangs were actually 1969 Shelby Mustangs. That is to say, in the summer of 1969, Carroll Shelby officially ended his agreement with the Ford Motor Company. As a result of this change, Ford rebranded all unsold ’69 Shelby Mustangs as 1970 Shelby Mustangs.
The 1969 Shelby Mustang story shows us that 1970 was such a significant year for the Ford Mustang, that even cars made in earlier years tried to join the party.
