[Bob Gaines]

All of the 65-70 Shelby's were supposed to get the front shock upper brackets with the reinforcement (washer). The Koni shock vs. Gabriel adjustable Ford shock would not be a reason for deleting the reinforcement. The reinforcement was part of the FOR EXPORT package in which normal Mustangs destined for export received the reinforced shock brackets as well as the shock tower brace and non adjustable but heavy duty Ford shocks because of the rough roads in Europe. I have never come across a 65/66 Shelby that was missing those reinforcements that was a surviver enough to indicate it was missing from the factory(Ford assembly line) . Not to say it couldn't happen but it is highly unlikely.All of the examples seen by myself and others restorers ,concours judges etc. for 1966 haven't indicated a pattern . The owner would have to provide some type of concrete provenece to support not having them. My opinion is it would be much easier to put them in place like they were intended and not have to explain everytime someone questioned it even IF you could document it . Now if you were talking about 67 then there was a huge number that were missing the reinforced upper shock brackets for some reason ,probably for supply reasons. In 1967 it was in the middle of production that this mistake happened. This has been documented by numerous surviver type cars. It was a mistake that didn't enhance the image of the car but took away from the high performance aspect of the car. I don't like to see the cars missing the brkts and incourage the 67 owners to but the brkts on as intended also. Just my opinion. 1968 ,69 and 70 did not see any interruption in supply of the reinforced brackets. The most likely scenario on missing reinforced brackets is replacement because of loss or whatever by previous owner.