1968 1968 GT Equipment Option

[stangfan]

can you guys see these attachments ok?

Only if you click on the little symbol to open it up. It seems to be part of the current site problems.

 

[clubpro]

Anyone other than me wish that they had a time machine? Especially since I lived only 7 miles from where our cars were built. I remember taking our family who lived in Los Angeles on a tour of the Ford plant and watching them build the 67 mustangs. For a 9 year old I thought that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

For those of us old enough to remember you could sit down with the salesman and check the boxes for the misc. items that you wanted on the car. If you have a chance you need to see Jay Leno's interview on "My Classic Car" about ordering his dad's 66 Galaxie, it is hilarious. Also after the strike that took place in late 67 there were a lot of items that were included in the previous years that became options for 68.

I ran into my high school auto shop teacher back in July and was driving my High Country and he was telling me about when he was a shift manager in 68 at Ford and remembers our cars being built and how the guys on the line hated them because of all of the extras. It was enjoyable to talk to someone who had actually worked on our cars.

Cheers,

Ron

 

[6t8-390gt]

Here are a couple of invoices fellas. Note the S code GT had a bigger sticker than the sparse 428 R code GT. Hmmm...now if you could go back into time which one would you order ha!
Hi Danny no mention of brakes on the S car. let's use these instead of Marti reports for this fact finding mission.

Kerry,
The s-code GT is a 67, not a 68.

Danny

 

[stangfan]

Anyone other than me wish that they had a time machine?

Almost every day! :grin:

 

[sportyworty]

doh !!

ok let me look through some more.

 

[dalorzo_f]

Yeah, the "I wish I bought more back then" is a nice game to play... but factor in inflation...

The $3700 car increases to $26k in basic terms. So "good value", but add up all you would have spent maintaining (unless you had a big free climate controlled shed for the past 40 years!) it and the real gain is not that significant.

The average cost of a house in '67 was about $14k! Average annual income about $7500. So if you take the time machine realize your "today money" goes away and reverts to those factors when you pop out in '67...:wink: A $3700 car was considered quite expensive back-in-the-day, that and 40+ years of entropy...thus the rarity today...

Better to have bought Apple or Microsoft for serious returns over a far shorter period. Invest $3700 in either at IPO an you could buy a half dozen '68 R codes today and still have spare change!! Lots of better "wish I woulda's" than Mustangs.... :wink:

 

[robert campbell]

Yeah, the "I wish I bought more back then" is a nice game to play... but factor in inflation...

The $3700 car increases to $26k in basic terms. So "good value", but add up all you would have spent maintaining (unless you had a big free climate controlled shed for the past 40 years!) it and the real gain is not that significant.

The average cost of a house in '67 was about $14k! Average annual income about $7500. So if you take the time machine realize your "today money" goes away and reverts to those factors when you pop out in '67...:wink: A $3700 car was considered quite expensive back-in-the-day, that and 40+ years of entropy...thus the rarity today...

Better to have bought Apple or Microsoft for serious returns over a far shorter period. Invest $3700 in either at IPO an you could buy a half dozen '68 R codes today and still have spare change!! Lots of better "wish I woulda's" than Mustangs.... :wink:

I think you missed the point. sportyworty was making a comparison between the cost of a 390 car in 1967 vice the cost of a 428 car in 1968. Not about todays cost at all. The fact that someone back in the day paid more for a 390 powered car not as valuable as the 428 powered one.

Rob

 

[somethingspecial]

Will someone show me a Marti report showing an S-code, GT, WITHOUT Power Disc Brakes?

Danny

Danny, I checked all my S code Marti reports and found all S code Marti's I have show PDB, GT or non GT. Mike

 

[robert campbell]

Danny, I checked all my S code Marti reports and found all S code Marti's I have show PDB, GT or non GT. Mike

I think this is a bit tougher. Sportyworty posted a 1967 window sticker. Notice that it has the GT option, and I am assuming that Sporty knows this car and it has PDB's like all GT cars in 1967 would receive. The PDB option is not called out separately or given a dollar amount.

The 1968 Marti's I have seen concerning this issue always seem to list the PDB option separately. As most big block cars got the PDB's in 1968 listed separately it tends to support the fact that it was a separate option with a price when the cars got the GT option. Maybe we are missing something like a mandatory requirement for all 1968 S, X, and R codes to have PDB's or DB's?

Rob

 

[6t8-390gt]

I think there is confusion with the S-codes because early in the 1968 production year you could order the S-code 390 without getting the "GT option" and therefore also being able to get the S-code without PDB. Ford sales brochures indicate that during the production year they changed the availability of the S-code engine...limiting it to GT models only. I personally have never seen a S-code non GT with the later style of reflectors, but have not narrowed down a specific time period for the change.

If you checked the "GT option" along with the S-code or R-code it was mandatory to also get PDB(it will show on Marti reports and window stickers as a separate option).

The mandatory PDB requirement did not apply to the J-code or X-code GT's.

Danny

Thanks Mike for checking your Marti reports.

 

[robert campbell]

The link in my post a few above this shows a 1968 390 GT equipped convertible with non-recessed reflectors without disc brakes. Very low mileage that has not undergone a total restoration and a low owner car. Article says he has the Marti report, so he more than likely would have identified the disc brakes as removed or? Obviously there is no vin number in the article, so maybe it is close to the transition from the recessed reflectors? So an early car before the requirement for S and R codes to have PDB's?

Rob

 

[6t8-390gt]

Rob,
That is interesting! I would like to see the Marti report on that one. I have seen J-code GT's with drum brakes, but never an S-code.

Danny

 

[robert campbell]

Danny,
Not to hi-jack my own thread, but a few years back I had a decision on my 1968 Mustang GNS. I sold a 57 Ford Del Rio Two Door Ranch Wagon. Over the years I had 2 different 428 cobra Jets and I had installed a numbers match CJ and C6 from a 1969 Torino in the Ranch Wagon. Huge Lunati hydraulic cam with a 427 "sidewinder" that I welded the bottom floors and port to match the CJ heads. Dove roller rocker system, Crites headers, 3.7 gears and a gears vendor. Ward and June Cleavers car on steroids!!

Purchaser did not want the drive train. So here I was, make the GNS a CJ automatic beast or sell it. Ended up selling it to a guy with a 1970 CJ Mustang in the Denver area. Do not know where it went from there.

I have the Weiand supercharged 302 with a Lentech AOD valve bodied hardened AOD.

Kinda miss all that iron circulating in a 428 CJ...... With the big cam and 3 inch exhaust it turned on Beemer car alarms when I idled by....

Rob

 

[dalorzo_f]

So an early car before the requirement for S and R codes to have PDB's?

The S codes never required PDB's. as noted only with the GT option. Think the confusion to many comes in with the "390GT" engine = "GT" option, which means is should have discs. False assumption (one I deal with a lot from the well intentioned but ill informed with a non-GT 68 S code)

See my late Dec 67 build S convertible Marti posted above, BOSE order, factory drums on it when I bought it in '91. 2nd owner car and unrestored at the time. (the odds of someone in pre '91 hunting down factory correct dated parts to remove discs wouls seem slim, still have all the parts, but I put PDB's on it in about 2001 as on California hilly/winding roads around the Bay Area those drums would get smokin' hot)

As far as the R's, all the literature I've seen notes they all got the GT option as "standard" and thus had PDBs added on from the factory. Maybe someone did a PDB delete as Ford was pretty accommodating back in the day...

 

[sportyworty]

My late reflector S Cal Spec

 

[sportyworty]

The first 50 R 428 Mustangs are non GT drum cars

Perhaps not relevant but Cougars are different however they were built on the same line. I have 4 reports for 68 R codes. 2 are GT. 1 GT car is a drum and 1 is a PDB. Same with the non GT cars 1 with and 1 without. They are all May/June cars.

 

[6t8-390gt]

Kerry,
That's cool, I think a previous post you or Richard showed a non GT S-code car built in March so I know a few are out there (although I have never personally see one). I would love to narrow the date down closer. Out of curiosity, was there a big delay in the order date, buck date and actual production date? Just wondering if it was ordered during the strike and not built until March for some reason.

Danny

 

[somethingspecial]

Thanks for posting the Marti Report Kerry. I had the VIN in the Registry, but no other info or owner. Registry Updated. Mike

 

[dalorzo_f]

non GT S-code car built in March

Mine is a Dec '67 build date. Oddly the VIN stamped original engine is July dated.

 

[sportyworty]

Not odd for an early post strike car. The important date is the assembly date stamp not the cast date