At last, 1965 Thunderbird taillights finally made their way onto a production Shelby (although the lights were slightly modified to clean off the black trim that surrounded the chrome trim bezels as they came out of the box). The idea of fitting taillights from Ford’s bird onto Shelby’s snake wasn’t a new one, having been tried in 1965 as a styling “how about?” for the upcoming 1966 models. Fitment of the light bezels and housings to the flat metal tail panel of the Mustang, however, didn’t yield a very finished-looking installation, so the idea was shelved for a few years. The molded fiberglass tail panel of the 1968 cars was designed to accept the ’Bird lights and, as such, yielded a very finished look. Attachment of the tail panel to the cross rail at the back edge of the trunk opening was the same as on the later 1967 cars (indicating that that method likely worked the best). Here again, as in almost every year prior, Shelby styling ran afoul of motor vehicle laws with some states declaring the sequential blinking of the taillights illegal; modification kits were made available to “unsequentialize” the lights. 