Car Watching - 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang

Although I do know a bit about Mustangs, I'm not going to make a judgement as to the authenticity of this GT500.  They're pretty rare Mustangs and plenty of people take regular vintage Mustangs and turn them into GT's, Shelby's, Bosses, or whatever.  So unless they are very obviously fake, I just assume they're real and then gush over them.

The 1967 GT500 was the first Big Block Shelby.  It had the FE 428 under the hood with dual 4-barrell carbs.  It had numerous fiberglass body parts, such as the hood, trunk lid, etc.  It added to the butch look of the bigger 67's.  This one was missing the big signature driving lights that usually rest in those big holes in the grill.

This guy was a really cool midnight blue.  It was also in great shape, although it still looked to be a driver rather than a show car.

I always liked the regular 1967 Mustang rear end.  The tail light panel is concave and the fastback roofline comes right to the edge of the trunk lid.  The Shelby rear is significantly different, with the roofline ending in a lipped tail and the tail light panel itself is flat with long, rectangular tail lights.

Overall, a very nice looking car, and one I would love to take up to speed on the back roads.

Car Watching - Triumph TR4 IRS

By no means am I an expert on old British sports cars.  Actually, I'm no expert on anything.  However, I was drawn in a couple weeks ago by this super cool Triumph TR4.

This car is a total driver, and it's all the better for it.  It's not a show car, but a perfect example of the breed.  The TR4 existed from 1961 to 1967 or so.  Triumph people will actually brag that the engine, a pushrod 4 cylinder, came from a tractor.  It was a pretty good engine for a small, light car.  There were even supercharged versions of this engine that made over 200 horses.  These big ol' headlights look kind of out of place on this little car, but they add to the charm.

 I've always liked the name Triumph.  It just says "sporty".

 Perfect British profile.

 This particular TR4 was an IRS model.  Yep, that means Independent Rear Suspension, which wasn't all that common in the old days.  And TR4's that were IRS models actually had different frames underneath.  It was a seriously different car!  Since this is an IRS, it looks like that would make it a TR4-A, a 1965-66-67.  There were some 40,000 TR4's produced over it's entire production run.

The interior and dash just kills me.  I'm a sucker for the clean, ancient, simpleness here.  I would have loved to jump in and give the old girl a go!