Shelby Back as “King of the Road”

2008 Ford Shelby GT500KR

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Carroll Shelby seems to be everywhere at this year’s New York International Auto Show, signing autographs, giving interviews – and introducing two new muscle cars bearing his name, including a convertible version of the limited-edition GT-H, specifically developed for Hertz car rental lots.

But the big news from the octogenarian legend is the rebirth of the Shelby Mustang GT500KR.

It’s been 40 years since Carroll Shelby first walked into the office of Lee Iacocca, then president of Ford Motor Co., only to learn that arch-rival Chevrolet was about to launch an “ultimate” version of its Corvette, tentatively dubbed the “king of the road.” Unfortunately for Chevy, it had failed to protect the name and Shelby sent his lawyer racing to the trademark office – and his engineers to speed up development of his own king-of-the-road Mustang.

The new GT500KR will burst out of the showrooms in the spring of 2008 making a serious 540 horsepower. And according to a very, very, very senior source on the Shelby side, we will expect to see a readily-available tuner kit that should boost the numbers to well in excess of 600.

“This is a street car you can take to the racetrack,” explained Shelby.

Don’t dither, is the word from Ford, as the company expects to produce just 1000 copies of the King of the Road.

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