Photo: Barrett-Jackson
Try as they might, carmakers have no way of knowing what models will end up becoming collectibles, or turning points in the history of the industry, or milestones of some kind. If they knew, they’d probably keep hold of pretty much everything related to the development process.
As is, in most cases a lot of what gets into designing a new car gets destroyed. And that includes, sadly, pre-production vehicles, which often end up shredded or crushed.
The 2013 Shelby GT500 we have here is one of those pre-production vehicles. It, however, managed to somehow escape the fate Ford had planned for it after development of the line concluded, and was sent to an auction with 3,500 test miles (5,633 km) on the clock. How, by whom and why, it remains a mystery. And so did, for a while, the fact that this was a pre-production vehicle.
According to Barrett-Jackson, the auction house is now once again tasked with selling it, during the Las Vegas event happening these days, after being sold for the first time, the car ended up on the lot of a broker, then a dealer, then a private owner in Pennsylvania, and is now back in the hands of a consignor.
It’s this last owner of the car that stumbled on the tiny detail that this is a pre-production vehicle, made in February 2012, a few months before actual production began. They did so after requesting a replacement Window Sticker, and that showed the destination as not some random dealer, but Diversified, the home base of Ford’s Chassis Design, the crew that was partially responsible for tweaking the GT500.
Also, the VIN is, according to Barrett-Jackson, 6,776 numbers lower than that of the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 001.
The car is now heading under the hammer with 17,077 miles (27,482 km), a 5.8-liter supercharged V8 with 662 horsepower on tap, and a 6-speed manual transmission.
The 2013 Shelby GT500 we have here is one of those pre-production vehicles. It, however, managed to somehow escape the fate Ford had planned for it after development of the line concluded, and was sent to an auction with 3,500 test miles (5,633 km) on the clock. How, by whom and why, it remains a mystery. And so did, for a while, the fact that this was a pre-production vehicle.
According to Barrett-Jackson, the auction house is now once again tasked with selling it, during the Las Vegas event happening these days, after being sold for the first time, the car ended up on the lot of a broker, then a dealer, then a private owner in Pennsylvania, and is now back in the hands of a consignor.
It’s this last owner of the car that stumbled on the tiny detail that this is a pre-production vehicle, made in February 2012, a few months before actual production began. They did so after requesting a replacement Window Sticker, and that showed the destination as not some random dealer, but Diversified, the home base of Ford’s Chassis Design, the crew that was partially responsible for tweaking the GT500.
Also, the VIN is, according to Barrett-Jackson, 6,776 numbers lower than that of the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 001.
The car is now heading under the hammer with 17,077 miles (27,482 km), a 5.8-liter supercharged V8 with 662 horsepower on tap, and a 6-speed manual transmission.
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