Bringing the Past into the Future. This is definitely the best slogan for what guys from Retrobuilt do. They take the ’05 or later Mustangs and convert them to resemble the 1969 GTs. The looks and quality is so great, that 1969 GT 500CS conversion got the License of Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. This means their GT 500CS cars are in the Shelby World Registry [with the “CS” letters added in order to differ them from original Shelby cars].
It might by quite hard to notice that cars aren’t real ’69 muscles from distance. S197 Mustangs are a bit wider than the original oldschools, so Retrobuilt used illusion tricks by widening the real ’69 bumper, etc. The hardest job was to mimic the vintage looks of the whole car so almost all panels had to be changed. The hood, front fenders, doors, quarters, and rear decklid are made from fiberglass – all are custom. In fact, the roof is the only part left original from S197. Factory ’69 Mustang components are: the headlight buckets, side marker lights, chrome door handles, modified ’69 rear spoiler, pedestal mounts.
Retrobuilt is now negotiating with Ford to produce the Mach 1 [blue one] and a Boss 302. Until then Retrobuilt advertises and sells the cars under the “Retro GT” name. They are also currently working on right hand conversions to ship to Australia.
Photos belong to Retrobuilt and are used with permission. Special thanks to Doug Fox.
