The First Public 2026 Shelby GT350/TA Is Heading to Kruse Auctions' Auburn Fall Sale

The first-ever 2026 Shelby GT350/TA to reach private hands is about to become the first one anyone outside Shelby's exclusive allocation list can actually buy. Kruse Auctions has listed the one-of-one, 97-test-mile example as Lot 610 for its Auburn Fall 2026 auction on September 5, marking the earliest public offering of a car that was sold out before it ever reached a showroom.

Shelby's connection to Trans-Am racing goes back to the mid-1960s, when Carroll Shelby's shop turned the brand-new Mustang into a genuine SCCA weapon. The GT350 dominated B-Production beginning in 1965, and when the SCCA launched its Trans-American Sedan Championship the following year, Shelby-prepped notchbacks helped Ford claim the inaugural manufacturers' title. That racing bloodline eventually ran through the Boss 302 program of 1970, a car whose #3-condition value sits at roughly $62,300 today according to Hagerty's price guide, and it's the same lineage Shelby is leaning on six decades later with its new Shelby GT350/TA.

Built jointly by Shelby American and Turn Key Motorsports to mark the 60th anniversary of the Trans-Am series, the new GT350/TA borrows hardware developed for Shelby's upcoming Trans Am race program. Only 40 will ever be built, every one already accounted for, and each is logged in the official Shelby Registry. A supercharged 5.0-liter V8 rated at more than 830 horsepower routes exclusively through a six-speed manual transmission, a deliberate choice in an era when most flagship performance cars default to dual-clutch gearboxes. Trans Am-spec coil-overs, Alcon brakes, Forgeline wheels, and a full carbon-fiber aero package round out a car built as much for a road course as a driveway.

This particular GT350/TA carries extra significance beyond simply being first. Finished in Orange Fury with a one-of-one Twister Graphics package referencing Shelby's original Trans-Am racers, it also served as the test car Shelby and Road & Track used for the model's global media review. With only 97 miles on the clock, it's about as fresh as a car with that kind of resume gets. Ford's own halo Mustang, the GTD, produces 815 horsepower and pairs it exclusively to a dual-clutch transmission, so the GT350/TA's manual gearbox and larger power figure give it a genuine claim to being the more driver-focused of the two.

Hagerty's valuation tools offer a useful lens for thinking about where a car like this could eventually land. Original Shelby GT350s already show how widely values can swing within one nameplate: a 1966 GT350 fastback in #3 (Good) condition is valued around $231,000, while a 1966 GT350 convertible in the same condition reaches roughly $740,000, and a supercharged 1967 fastback sits near $422,000. Even the later small-block cars settle much lower, with 1969-1970 GT350s generally landing between $70,000 and $108,000. The modern factory GT350 tells a similar story on a smaller scale: Hagerty prices a standard 2015-2019 GT350 in #3 condition between roughly $55,000 and $64,600, while the track-focused GT350R climbs to between about $72,000 and $107,000 depending on year. A hand-built, 40-unit GT350/TA with a documented media pedigree doesn't fit neatly into any of Hagerty's existing brackets yet, but the pattern is clear: rarity and motorsport connection have always commanded a premium in this family of cars. It's a similar exercise to the one Motorious ran on a no-reserve 1994 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning bidding below Hagerty's own guide, where the price guide becomes a real-time benchmark against what a car actually sells for.

For now, this Auburn Fall sale is the only door open to buyers who missed Shelby's allocation entirely. Whoever wins Lot 610 won't just own the newest Shelby homage to Trans-Am racing, they'll own the first one ever sold outside the factory list, a distinction that tends to matter a great deal once a limited-production car starts showing up at auction years down the road. Readers who want more on where Ford's modern performance flagships stand today can also see Motorious's earlier coverage of this 2020 Shelby GT500 built for wide-open throttle thrills.