The Ford Mustang is maybe the most popular muscle car of all time. And as a result, you’ve seen every kind of mod possible, from mid-engined abominations for SEMA to clean restomods, sometimes sporting Chevy engines. However, you’ve probably never seen a Shelby GT500 with two Paxton superchargers.
Twin chargers aren’t a new concept. It was pretty common to see them on older dragsters or show cars back when supercharging and fuel technology weren’t as advanced as it is today. However, this twin-Paxton setup looks completely different. There are no twin billet chargers on top of the V8 with a chimney stack sticking through the hood. Instead, they’re neatly packaged under the hood.
With one Paxton supercharger on either side, this almost looks like a twin-turbo setup but made with technology from Shelby’s parts catalog of the late 1960s. Really interesting!
Back when this GT500 was engineered, Ford had just shown it could dominate the Le Mans racing series, and it wanted to capitalize with a series production car. Early in the car’s development, it was decided that the 427 cubic-inch V8 from the GT40 wouldn’t be used for this Mustang, and instead, they opted for the “Police Interceptor” V8.
Now, this Shelby GT500 does have the appropriate displacement, which is a 428 cubic-inch that would normally be reserved for full-sized cars. However, the owner decided to take the original matching numbers engine for safety, so it would blow up under the added load of twin superchargers.
In its place is another 428, which he built and is stroked a little, thus taking advantage of the added air coming in from the Paxtons. Greg is in the business of building Paxtons for Shelby cars and wanted to flex, so he fitted two separate carburetors and packaged the twin induction systems.
Hagerty points out that the setup is quite similar to the two cars Carrol Shelby made, the Twin Paxton 427 Cobras which became known as the Super Snakes. One of them sold for $5.5 million last year, so this mod is super-classy. These two cars are CSX3015 and CSX3303. Shelby kept Super Snake CSX3015 for himself but personally sold CSX3303 to comedian Bill Cosby.
This is a valuable car even without the custom setup. 1967 is the first year of the GT500, the third overall for Shelby-badged Ford ponies. It’s also the last year of the true Shelby Mustang because, in 1968, production moved from the famous Los Angeles factory to Ford’s own in Michigan. Yes, this is a Holy Grail kind of car, so no wonder Collin the appraiser says it’s worth a cool $250,000.
It’s a very early model with twin “inboard headlights” in the middle of the grille, which was changed on later models. Its condition is excellent and the car looks original for the most part. The Dark Moss Green paint was very popular at the time, with 798 cars exiting Shelby’s factory wearing it for 1967.
Besides owning the rights to make these McCulloch Paxton superchargers, Craig also makes brand-new versions of the legendary Magstar wheels. They are 15×7 at the front and 15×8-inch at the back, which is why the stance of this Shelby looks so unusually wide. Of course, the extra rubber is also needed, as this new motor produces 700 hp, almost twice the claimed output of a stock GT500 (which was underrated).
