Ford Shelby GT 150 by Unique Performance

Ford Shelby GT-150 by Unique Performance you see here. Except, dont expect to see one in your local Ford dealer showroom, at least not for right now. Basically, what you see is a POC (Proof Of Concept) vehicle, which we first photographed at the production facility of Unique Performance in Farmers Branch, Texas, and a week later snapped again at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson classic car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. For the record, somebody paid $104,500 for this high performance Shelby truck. Thats a heap of cash, but also a heap of truck.

Before you start thinking anybody could add the cool stripes and spoilers, you should know the parts and pieces on this vehicle are one-off and unique to the GT-150. Functionally, this crew cab Shelby is a legal prototype. The project got going a few years ago when Doug Hasty, president of Unique Performance in Farmers Branch, Texas worked out a licensing agreement with Shelby Automobiles. Of course, Unique builds the Shelby G.T.500E Continuation Eleanor fastbacks under Shelby license, as well.

In the last few years, Unique has been getting into production of limited high performance vehicles. For the engineering and validation required to manufacture new cars and trucks, in 2005 they teamed with Tecstar, a top OEM supplier and manufacturer based in Troy, Michigan. The first vehicle to come out of that association was the 2006 Foose Stallion, a hot new Mustang available in Ford showrooms. The 07 will have a supercharger option.

A Shelby pickup would fill a niche in the F-150 lineup with the departure, in 2004, of the popular Ford Lightening. Hasty was eager to put such a truck on the road. Shelby wanted in the truck market, too. In 2004, at the SEMA show in Las Vegas, he had displayed a Shelby Expedition, another concept vehicle. Maybe production could wait, however, with the Expedition fast approaching achangeover in its design. The F-150 was longer lived.

Unique Performance Concepts hired Joe Iacono to design a Shelby truck. Hasty asked for a fresh approach, something race-inspired that tied into Shelbys legacy and what he is doing today. Iacono, a 29 year-old automotive artist and designer from Northern California, has been gaining a reputation of one of the most prolific designers in the industry. Iacono has designed and coordinated many traditional hot rods, aftermarket concepts, and niche market production vehicles. The Speed Channel along with BCII Productions recently chose Iacono to design nine (9) custom aftermarket vehicle concepts for the upcoming episodes of the new TV show called
Payback. Hasty calls Iacono an up and coming talent with a lot of creativity. Unique also worked with Joe on the HHR they did with General Motors for the hit television show Rides on The Learning Channel

Hasty said, A lot of dealers had given us the feedback, at the very least it needed to be an extended cab truck. So we went with an extended cab fleet side, to keep as much weight as we could down.Giving the truck a rear seat would increase the customer base. They even considered a four door in the lineup.

Hasty said, The four door was so much heavier we thought we would do the extended cab first, and get feedback from the consumer, and let the consumer tell us which direction to go.

From Joe's renderings, Unique Performance Concepts clayed up a full sized truck, then pulled molds for parts to create the Shelby GT-150. This work was done in Tecstars Wheel-To-Wheel facility in Troy, Michigan. Wheel-To-Wheel builds very high end, prototype vehicles from all of the top auto manufacturers in Detroit.

UPC built three prototypes. The first one was used for durability tests. The second truck was built mainly for development of interior components. The third GT-150 was the POC vehicle, seen here. Iacono mentions, Some inspirations for the vehicle concept stem from the modern Shelby Cobra and the modern Shelby Mustang. The grille was designed from the signature Shelby look of the big gaping intake. Unlike a car, trucks have a very bulky utility-like feature that we wanted to streamline to keep within our performance stance. The front clip is 4.5 inches lower than the production model vehicle. We also wanted to tighten up the tolerances throughout the vehicle including the rocker panels and rear cover. We have added 3.4 mills to the lower door and fender wells to also help define the performance stance.

When designing a vehicle that will be made on a small production run, you have many regulations to follow. Keeping to the rules, we wanted to push the envelope on developing a very modern line for a truck.

The hood, though not functional, features a twin scoop pattern painted blue and offset with racing stripes on the drivers side. This application was inspired by the early Shelby Cobra racecars of the 60s. The two-panel race stripe that covers the 1/4 panel was a way to keep the traditional race stripes that Shelby is known for without making the truck look tall. We wanted to shift the attention from a tall cab line, so we looked at a 1/4 panel stripe also called a rookie stripe. This made sense to the entire team, as it is an option you see used on many of the Vintage Shelby Cobra collectables.

As you move from front to rear, we wanted to create Fluidity or Gestalt with each body part. Keeping this in mind, the team was able to define part solutions that were not greater than the whole.

For now, the truck has been shelved and concept development slowed. Whether or not the truck moves forward is up in the air. Since the POC GT-150 had served its purpose, Unique decided to sell it at Barrett-Jackson and show the public what the truck is all about. This way, it would be kind of a gauge to get some feedback from the public.