This color is referred to as "Yellow" in Shelby
records. No one can argue the color WT 6066 is a special paint color. But,
it is certainly different from the other five special colors. 144 of the 159 special paint cars were yellow. Yellow Shelbys were the only cars
that used black rocker panel stripes.
WT 6066 actually
replaced the color Sunlit Gold (Ford code "Y"). "Why ?" Well, there were
not too many fans of gold painted Shelbys at AO Smith. During the spring
of 1968 someone noticed the AO Smith gold paint did not match Meutchen Ford
assembly gold paint. Not really a problem, unless you have already
assembled a batch of brand new gold Shelbys. Fiberglass front ends and decklids were pre-painted. AO Smith was forced to remove the
fiberglass from 38 cars and repaint them to match the body shells. It was
an expensive undertaking and no doubt, caused some hard feelings. So you
won't see any gold GT500KRs, because Sunlit Gold was history by the time the Cobra Jet cars arrived.
The table below summarizes the Yellow cars produced for Shelby.
| Yellow Shelbys | Fastbacks | Convertibles |
|---|---|---|
| GT350s | 8 | 7* |
| GT500KRs | 86 | 43 |
| Yellow Totals | 94 | 50 |
*Note: Seven GT350 convertibles were scheduled, but only six were produced. One of these cars was painted white by mistake.
By looking at the chart above, you can see that the total number of
yellow 1968 Shelbys produced is 144. I'm sure you
have seen other estimates, but this information comes from factory
records. By taking the total number of special paint cars (159) and subtracting the colors other than yellow (15), the total
of yellow cars is placed at 144. To date, 14 of the non-yellow cars have been located.
Let's take a look at the yellow convertibles! There were 50 yellow Shelby convertibles.
43 cars were GT500KRs and 7 cars were GT350s.
Maybe you know where a missing special paint car is? If you do, drop me an email...and remember, there were no GT500 special paint cars.