Buddy's 2008 Shellby Cobra GT500
I was raised in East Cleveland, Ohio which is where I
first came in contact with Mustangs. My older brother purchased a 1966
Red Mustang GT Coupe.
It was an awesome car, especially to a 16 year old kid like myself.
I took my drivers test in that car. It was a 3 speed with bucket seats.
My brother lived at home so I got to drive it on occasion. My brother
had to enter the Military and my parents could not afford to keep the
car so they sold it to my girlfriends brother.I remember dropping off
the car and walking home thinking that one day I would have something
like that. My first car was a Ford Galaxy 500 with a 390. It had a bench
seat with a 4 on the floor. I had purchased it from a family whose son
had been killed in Vietnam, it had been his car. It was the summer of
1970, before my Junior year in College. I borrowed the money from a
man who was to be sponsor of my summer baseball team. It was the first
time I signed an IOU. I drove the car until the summer of 1974 and sold
it Midland, Texas which is where I was playing AA minor league baseball
for the Chicago Cubs. I purchased my first Shelby in 1979 while I was
playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a 1966, Blue with white
stripes, automatic and was the fastest car I had ever been in. I had
always wanted a Shelby, I loved the white stripes down the middle of
the car. At Shaw High there were 2 gas stations next to the school,
a Shell and a Gulf. The Gulf station always had a green Shelby parked
in it and I always admired it. I loved the way people would watch the
Shelby's with the white stripes go by. Now every manufacturer, every
brand and even trucks have stripes. I sold that car for $ 10,000 a couple
of years later. In 2004 I purchased a 40th Anniversary Edition Red Mustang
convertible. It was the last year before the body style change. I liked
the car, took great care of it but it wasn't Special.
I didn't drive it very much, I kept it clean and put gas in it, I have
no mechanical knowledge. My perfect car would be a 1968 Shelby Cobra
GT 500 KR Convertible. There were only 318 units built. 1968 is a special
year for me. I graduated high school in that year and I pitched my High
School to the Ohio State Baseball Championship and I was on top of the
world. 1968 was the center of the Muscle Car Era and I believe that
the 1968 Shelby was the best year for styling ever. The intakes at the
front of the hood are the best and throw in a 428 Cobra Jet engine and
just hang on. In May of 2008 I returned from Ohio where
I had just attended the 40th reunion of our State Championship Baseball
Team. I was inspired. I told my wife I was going to go buy a car. She
asked what was
I going to do with the one in the garage. Trade it in I said. I told
her there was a car I had always wanted and she said have fun. Since
I was not willing to spend the money on a 1968 Shelby I decided to buy
a 2008 Shelby. It had to be red and had to be a convertible. It was
not as easy as it sounded as there were only 7070 convertibles made
and only 463 in Torch Red made in 2008. Red had to be the color as it
was the color of the first Mustang I ever drove and the color of the
Shaw High Cardinals and St. Louis Cardinals. It had to be a convertible
because we Live in Arizona. After looking for a while I found my car
at Berge Ford. After 2 days of negotiations and my wife going 80 in
a 35 MPH zone, she said it didn't sound like it was going 80, I purchased
the car on May 31st.
I did some research on the car. I contacted the Ford SVT Team and found
out some interesting information about my car. There were 8,583 Shelby's
built in 2008 and 1,830 in Torch Red. There were 151 Red Shelby convertibles
with black side stripes built in 2008 and 238 with Red/Black interiors
like mine.
I did not have stripes put down the middle because the original tradition
of the 1960's Shelby's say that there are no center stripes on convertibles
and I am a traditionalist. The only change I made to the car was to
put Cobra floor mats in instead of the plain standard ones. My car is
number 1317 of 2070 convertibles made and number 306 of 463 Torch Red
convertibles built in 2008. I do not drive my car in the rain, I do
not drive it if I can’t have the top down.
The current mileage is below 3,000. When I walk through the garage or
just open the door to look, I say to myself, that's a great looking
car and just smile to myself. When I am asked why I don't drive the
car more I reply, " Would you play catch with a Babe Ruth autographed
baseball?" My dream as a boy was to play Major League Baseball
and be on Baseball Cards and I did that. My dream car now sits in my
garage, not as an investment with 500 horse power, but as a memento
to the dreams little boys have.
Buddy Schultz
