Man Waited a Lifetime To Buy This Shelby Mustang GT500KR, Wanted To Sell It a Year Later

In short, in late 1966, a mechanic from Tasca Ford took the Bopper’s then-new 390 GTA coupe for a spin, shifted the lever into first, then guns it. Naturally, the big-block bucks under throttle, valves start floating like the springs are made of putty, and finally succumbs to the ordeal.

That ‘A’ in the name stood for automatic, and the driver mistakenly left the stick in ‘1’ instead of putting it in ‘Drive.’ It was the end of that motor – and the beginning of a story that ended with FoMoCo winning the Winternationals a little over a year later.

After seeing his new car rendered useless, Bob Tasca asks his mechanics to fit a new engine in the car. The boys delivered big style, mating a 428 cubic-inch Police Interceptor bottom end with 406 heads, a 390 camshaft with hydraulic lifters, and a distributor from a 427.

Headers came from a 427 Fairlane, a higher-flow fuel pump was installed, and the intake manifold was also a Police Interceptor package piece of equipment, on top of which a Holley four-barrel carb was bolted. Tasca was so pleased with the end result that he named it KR-8, as in King of the Road 428.

In 1967, he made a roundtrip to Dearborn and showcased the Mustang to Ford’s brass hats, asking for performance in factory form. The Blue Oval gearheads took notes and the engine out of Bob’s car, and by the end of the year, the Cobra Jet was born.


Come February 1968, the new engine makes its classy world debut by beating the quarter-mile out of everyone at the Pomona Winternationals. On April 15, the 428 Cobra Jet V8 is released to the public. Shortly after, Caroll Shelby announces the 1968 GT500KR (King of the Road) variant as the most performant Shelby Mustang ever.

One thousand five hundred seventy-one examples were assembled for the remainder of the model year—the only year a GT500 wore the KR badge. One thousand fifty-three of those cars came with a solid roof, and the rest were convertibles – and there isn’t a single Ford fan out there who doesn’t dream of driving one (or even owning one).

Dave Snelling is one of the Blue (Oval)-blooded men who wanted to have a Shelby Mustang GT500KR since they first saw one. Finally, two years ago, he abandoned all hope and stopped dreaming. Not because he gave up on his wish but because it came true, and here he is, smiling ear to ear behind the wheel.

His Candy Apple Red example doesn’t sport the signature Shelby stripes, but that’s a minor deviation from perfection when the four-speed fastback flexes its 335-horsepower muscles. That power rating is a blunt lie, as the 440 lb-ft of torque will call.  The 340 PS and 597 Nm aren’t exactly best of friends, and several sources indicate that the real power output was closer to 400 ponies.

The car was bought by its current owner in 2022, and here’s an eyebrow raiser for you, internet: why would he put it up for sale at the Auburn, Indiana auction last September after paying the better part of $210,000 for his ‘dream car?’

Whatever the reason, the car sounds exactly as he dreamt it would, and it moves like there’s no one else on the road. And there isn’t, as Lou Costabile, the vlogger who showcases the car on his YouTube Channel, chose a nice, isolated location for the shooting.

The nice Shelby currently has 52,047 miles / 83,761 km on the clock (suspected to be original) and a 3.50 Track-Lok rear axle. It was the standard gearing in both automatic- and manual-transmission GT500 KRs. In fact, the 428 Cobra Jet Mustang sold by Ford came only with this differential ratio. Still, Shelby Automotive offered four more options (3.00, 4.11, 4.25, and 4.56).