A '67 Shelby Mustang GT500 and the Joy of Aimlessness

From the February 2017 issue

Four and a half years ago, as I prepared to move to Montana, I rented a Jeep Liberty from Thrifty in Missoula. The managing owner, Owen Kelley, greeted me at the desk, saying, “I know who you are.” I immediately struggled to think of any Thrifty vehicles I might have wrecked. But just as I came up with nothing, Owen added, “I have a whole bunch of Mustangs, including a ’67 Shelby GT500.”

“Wow,” I replied, certain he might be the kind of guy who sold goat glands in high school. “We should go for a ride sometime.”

It took years, but “sometime” was last Sunday, on one of the brightest, loveliest fall days in the planet’s evolution—larch trees the color of gold ingots and the aspens and cottonwoods the color of highway workers’ vests, a kind of fluorescent hue that Mother Nature is not supposed to possess.

Needless to say, Owen does own a ’67 GT500—dark moss green with white stripes. It is the most pristine Shelby Mustang I have ever seen. When I met him at our local Cenex station, the car’s hood was raised and he’d already drawn a crowd. Mon­tanans don’t give an ounce of kitty litter for Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but man, do they love their Mustangs.