TAKE COVER, CHEVY.(News)

Byline: WILLIAM JEANES

In 1965, corvette heard hoof beats

Those of us who remember 1964 with clarity recall the introduction and later success of the Ford Mustang with enduring wonder. Suddenly, Mustangs were everywhere, proliferating with the speed of Bugs and the Bunny family. The media covered the Mustang's success with the breathlessness usually accorded earthquakes and kidnappings. Lee Iacocca, who never shrank from claiming fatherhood of the Mustang, appeared on the cover of Time. Mustang owners learned how good the receiving end of envy could feel while non-owners went to bed sulking. The Mustang was the last American car to become an overnight, runaway success.

Though it can properly be called a phenomenon, the early Mustang was neither a muscle car like Pontiac's GTO nor a sports car like the E-type Jaguar. It wasn't even as much a sports car as the Corvette. It was just a honking success in the marketplace. The money rolled in at Ford, but the car got no respect from serious car enthusiasts.

Ford, in '64, had a vigorous NASCAR racing program based on the "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday'' theory of marketing. Under Iacocca, Ford's ad campaign based on a "Total Performance'' image was well under way. Iacocca wanted the Mustang positioned under the company's performance umbrel- la, and he knew just the man to do it.

Carroll Shelby, progenitor of the Cobra-still the only American-built car to win a world manufacturers' championship-says Iacocca asked him how to take the Mustang racing. The answer was simple enough: Build a version that could be competitive on the SCCA racing circuit. Ford had earlier tried- heavy-handedly-to get the Mustang into SCCA racing, but had been rightly rebuffed by the purists in charge.

To compete, Shelby had to build a minimum of 100 of the would-be participants. Shelby produced these cars first at the Shelby American facility in Venice, California, and later at a larger compound at the edge of the L.A. airport. He based his unnamed car on a stock Mustang fastback powered by the 289 High Performance V8, optional in certain Ford models. After several meetings failed to produce a name for the racing Mus-tang, Shelby named the car GT350-because 350 feet separated the Shelby American production shop from its race shop.