RUSTY RENTAL

BACKYARD BARN FIND 1966 SHELBY G.T.350-H HERTZ RENTAL CAR PARKED SINCE 1981

- Jerry Heasley

As rusty as it is, and as ugly as it is, there is so much good here,” said Rick Parker as he and his team from Signature Auto Classics, in Columbus, Ohio, were working with pickaxes and shovels to dig out a 1966 Shelby G.T.350-H that had been parked in a backyard for nearly 40 years. The registration on the plate expired in 1981.

The entire car had sunk into the mud and might not have been worth the trouble except it was a real Shelby, one of the 936 G.T.350-H models that Shelby-American produced in the Rent-A-Racer program. Most being automatic, these rental cars were once deemed slightly watered down and thus not destined to be as desirable as a basic four-speed 1966 G.T.350. Perhaps the wondrous black-with-gold paint stripe scheme, and the oddity of a real Shelby being available for $19.95 a day, is what has put this car on a collector pedestal.

This adventure began in 2015 when Mike Charles walked into Signature Auto Classics and told his friend Rick Parker he had found “a Shelby in the woods.” Rick and Mike drove 50 miles to Mount Vernon, Ohio, where the Mustang slumbered in a backyard on a tract of land where the car wasn’t visible from the street or the rear of the house. They knocked on the door, but nobody was home. Rick’s wife, Jacquie, wrote a letter to the address. A couple weeks later, Jacquie got a call from Carol Delano.