While a Shelby G.T. 500 is an inherently head-turning muscle car, there’s something special about this Highland Green example. But rather than relying on aftermarket bling or reimagined body lines to stand out in a crowd, this Shelby is a visual slow burn, luring you in with craftsmanship and attention to detail rather than in-your-face bluster.
Jeff Lilly Restorations in San Antonio, Texas wouldn’t have it any other way. While his shop’s customization work has been featured in dozens of magazines over the years, perhaps the most striking feature that’s common to all of their builds is their fastidious approach to fit and finish. In the case of this recently-completed ’67 Shelby G.T. 500, it results in presentation that’s closer to production standards of contemporary high-end automakers rather than the stuff that Shelby American was piecing together for Ford in the mid-1960s.
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
“When I was about eight years old, my dad took me to my first car show,” Lilly says. “I remember seeing all of the custom cars there and just being absolutely stunned. The high-end refinishing just floored me. Something about it really spoke to me – the idea that you could take something that was already cool and refine it to the best of your ability.”
By that time Jeff had already seen his fair share of restoration work, as his father Bill had originally opened up a body shop in Ohio back in 1957. But these cars were something different from the collision repairs that his father typically worked on. Free from the constraints of the bean counters at the insurance company, these builds showcased what was possible with passion and patience.
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
Jeff would go on to establish his own shop in 1987, and in the years since, his team has taken on a wide range of both custom work and exacting restoration projects. “Restorations were big at that time, so I wanted to emphasize that with the name. But then custom work got bigger in the 90s, and I definitely like doing that, too. These days that’s most of what we do. Today people want restomods; they want upgrades that make these cars more drivable, and now restomodding can even add more value if it’s done right. Unless it’s a really, really rare car. Like this Shelby.”
He recalls that when this G.T. 500 rolled into his shop, it was painted the wrong color and a number of parts were missing, but rust was minimal and the body was in decent shape, and the original 428-cu.in. Cobra Jet V8 was still under the hood. Although there was a lot of work ahead, the foundation looked promising.
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
Like many of the shop’s projects, the G.T. 500’s restoration was approached with the expectation that it would be subjected to judges’ scrutiny in the future, so the first step was to disassemble the car, clean everything up, and check the parts for originality.
“That gives you a good idea of where you’re at,” says Lilly. “Then you order sheet metal, strip the fiberglass, and in the meantime, you’re looking around for any parts that may be missing from the car. And you do your research: One of the people we purchased parts from is a national judge. We said to him, ‘OK – this is what’s missing. We asked him what was correct, what’s the right color for it, and so on.”
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
The shop also has a policy of extensively documenting its projects from start to finish, and this G.T. 500 restoration was no different.
Although originality is an important part of these types of restorations for Lilly, he’s quick to point out that the G.T. 500 might be considered “over-restored” by some standards. For him, it’s not just about improving upon the original template – it’s about making it usable.
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
“The 428, for example, is not factory-stock because you want to be able to get power out of it with today’s pump gas,” he says. “Nothing that can be seen from the outside, but there’s been some porting on the heads and it’s got a roller cam, some valvetrain upgrades, and it’s running lower compression. We rarely do motors with the original compression. People say they want it, but then you do it, and they quickly get tired of having to buy race gas. No judge is going to ask you to take apart the motor to see if the pistons are the right ones.” And that pragmatic approach informs elements of the restoration that improve durability, too.
“I don’t want to build something that’s going to look good for a month before it starts to deteriorate – it’s got to stand up to the test of time,” he continues. “You have to paint a lot of stuff, that’s the only way. Most owners don’t want to do it the way it would have come from Ford, where the metal parts are all oiled so they don’t rust. So the driveshaft, for example, isn’t bare steel – it’s bare steel that’s been painted. And that’s the way you’re going to make it last if you don’t want to be underneath the car cleaning up rust spots all of the time.”
Photo: Jeff Lilly Restorations
These enhancements also set the tone for the overall fit and finish, which goes well beyond anything that either Shelby or Ford could have achieved back in 1967. “To me, the key is being able to do it without thick edges on the panels – thick edges mean you put a bunch of filler on it,” he tells us. “You have to do it with metal, use straight edges, and do it right. Sometimes a door line won’t match up with a quarter, and you have to cut the door to change the line to match it up. Even if you had a brand-new 1967 Shelby G.T. 500 that had been sitting in a time capsule, you would still find all sorts of fitment issues on it. Those cars were being sent down a production line, and in 1967, the fiberglass was hand-laid. The parts went on and you were on to the next one.” Although the shop’s process is complex and time-consuming, the results ultimately speak for themselves.
“When the owner came to get the car after we were done, he just stood there in kind of a stupor with his jaw dropped,” Lilly says with a laugh. “He has this big collection of cars, and he says that this is the one that he considers to be the masterpiece. And that’s the goal for us.”
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