I always fear treading into stories like this because they either bring out the tinfoil beanie troop or lead to some superfan screaming “Yoo no Nothing about the bestest Rock icon in the world, dood!” But here goes nothing.

Following the release of the Doors’ self-titled LP in January 1967, the folks at Elektra Records decided to show Doors frontman Jim Morrison their appreciation for the album’s success by buying Morrison a night mist blue 1967 Shelby G.T.500. The Shelby had a four-speed and the 10-spoke wheels, and even though Morrison liked the Shelby enough to nickname it The Blue Lady, he reportedly drove it like he stole it, getting into a few scrapes here and there with it in and around Los Angeles. The abuse he subjected it to is evident in the above short film “HWY: An American Pastoral,” which Morrison made in 1969 (and which has been cleaned up for a Doors documentary released earlier this year).

And then the story gets murky. By most accounts, sometime in 1970 or so, Morrison smacked a telephone pole with the Shelby near the Whisky a Go Go, walked on over to the club without reporting the accident, and returned to find the car towed, a revelation that elicited a mere shrug of the shoulders. Other accounts note that he never drove after that incident, and most Shelby fans speculate that The Blue Lady was subsequently crushed. Still other, mutually exclusive, accounts claim that Morrison parked the Shelby at LAX while he went on tour with the Doors and returned to find it towed from LAX and sold at public auction.

What is known is the VIN of the car and that nobody has publicly come forward with a car bearing that VIN. Bret Mattison over at ShelbyMustang.com has been leading the investigation into the car’s ultimate fate over the last few years, though it appears we may never know this particular Shelby’s full story.

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