Holly LaCroix's 1966 Ford Mustang Shelby G.T. 350H
A Rental Car? A Vintage Mustang? It Was Both.
In the 1960s, Hertz created a fleet of ‘Rent-A-Racer’ Fords — today the Ford Mustang Shelby G.T. 350H is highly prized by collectors.
Holly LaCroix, 69, a legal assistant from Oceanside, Calif., on her 1966 Ford Mustang Shelby G.T. 350H, as told to A.J. Baime (The Wall Street Journal).
“My husband Terry and I were preparing to get married in 1973, and he had a friend who had this Shelby Mustang out in front of his house. The car was sitting there in the elements, and Terry kept saying, “You have to take care of it.” Ultimately, we bought that car for very little money right before our wedding. I spent a lot of time in the passenger seat, and we went through tires like gangbusters.
Not a lot of these cars were made. In the mid-’60s, the Mustang was huge, and Ford partnered with the racing legend Carroll Shelby to build the high-performance Mustang G.T. 350. Hertz bought a thousand of these cars for customers, calling them Rent-a-Racers. Cars were painted in Hertz colors, and the H in the name stands for Hertz.” [When this car appeared in 1966, it cost $17 a day and 17 cents a mile to rent, according to Hertz.]
