For the hardcore ONLY - GT500J

Re: For the hardcore ONLY

This is not a guess but I don't know if it is true or not. I was attending SAAC 15 and having a 67 I was parked with the other 67's and 68's. A guy with a KR was parked next to me and we started talking. I remember him saying that Ford/Shelby had found out about 2 new models GM was planning for 69. One being a new 396 powered Camaro called the King of the Road and a 455 powered GTO called the Judge. Talk started of grabbing these names first and eventually they settled on GT500KR as the Camaro was a direct competitor as a pony car. The GT500J with J for Judge idea was scraped and the rest is history.

I may never know if this guys story was true or not but it is an interesting one at least.

 

Re: For the hardcore ONLY

Just one minor correction....
The KR that Chevy was to produce was a Corvette.
Heres the man himself telling the story....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdI_BO2bcBY
I assume most on this forum have seen this vid.....
Sorry to switch the subject from the "J", for which i have no clue and wont be giving any guesses, just thought this ought to be clarified.
Best Regards,
Vern

 

Re: For the hardcore ONLY

Thanks for the correction Vern, this was told to me 17 years ago and I may have gotten some of the details wrong. I just told the story the way I remembered it.

 

Re: For the hardcore ONLY

After I responded to Vern's post I did a search and found several stories that the 69 was going to be a Camaro. I am not sure if all of them are wrong or if Shelby slipped up telling a nearly 40 year old story.


On this one scroll down to the Cobra strikes section.
http://www.chron.com/class/cars/timspell/archive/111506.html

Here is a different one.
http://books.google.com/images/cleardot.gif

 

Re: For the hardcore ONLY

This throws me through a loop considering that the mustang's main rival was the upandcoming camaro and shelby's big rival on home turf was the corvette.

Does anyone out there have any solid proof for either case here?

Shelby is getting older and we have to allow him to slip up every once in a while. After all...shelby wasnt the hands on guy that people make him out to be, not to steal any of the big man's thunder, he admits that he surrounded himself with great people such as Remington, Miles, Spencer, Cantwell, Dowd, Gurney, Bondurant just to name a very select few. i always thought it was the corvette even before i saw the video....that is just the way it had been told to me.
We might not ever know for sure as the GM car obviously never happened...however, shelby said in the vid that they made brochures for the car........anyone ever seen one?

Best Regards,
Vern

 

I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but relative to the KR portion of the discussion, I had read about 15-20 years ago that the Chevy project was actually going to be the "Road King" and it was slated as a Camaro project. Coralsnake would know much better than I, but it's my understanding that by the 1968 Shelby models, Ford was making the decisions, not CS. It seems to me that Ford saw the Camaro as a threat to the Mustang, for which the Shelby models were intended to boost sales. I don't think the Corvette and the Mustang were seen as directly competing markets by the Ford execs. Additionally, CS's rivalry with Corvette was probably limited to the C2's ('63-'67).

Unfortunately, I don't know of any stories revolving around the "J" designation, but I like the Judge theory.

Josh

 

Although ford higherups probly didnt see a "normal" stang as being a main competitor of the corvette, whether they intended it or not, the shelby gts were direct competitors of the corvette.
How many vintage magazine articles are around which feature the shelbys vs the corvette 427s....ive seen more than a few.

Im not discrediting the camaro theory as it probly holds more water than the corvette theory, as i said....this was only how it was told to me...and by Carroll Shelby himself.

Best Regards,
Vern