Ford hasn’t yet announced the price of the 2007 Shelby Cobra GT500. But, whatever it is, buyers have already indicated a willingness to pay at least $20,000 more.

The Shelby Cobra GT500 is a version of the popular Ford Mustang equipped with a 500-horsepower supercharged V-8 engine. The original Shelby GT500s, made in the late 1960s by race driver turned sports car maker Carroll Shelby, are now highly coveted collectibles that can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Far fewer of those cars were built than the approximately 8,000 per year a Ford spokesman says will be made of the new version.)

On eBayMotors.com, one Texas dealership is advertising a 2007 Shelby GT500 with a "Buy it now" price of $99,999. So far, no-one’s paid that much, but bids in that auction were already over $65,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The first 2007 Shelby GT500s are expected to arrive in dealerships at the end of May with most dealerships getting just one or two to sell.

Ford’s sticker price for the car is expected to be about $40,000. Some dealers advertising on eBayMotors are asking for bids in terms of the amount over the sticker price the buyer would agree to pay.

Currently, bidders are offering to pay $20,000 or more over the car’s sticker price.

Shortly after the GT500 was unveiled in April, 2005, an interested buyer went into Corey’s Northgate Ford in Binghamton, N.Y. with a check for $1,000 for the right to buy a GT500 for sticker price whenever the car became available, said Scott Prancue, the dealership’s general manager.

"Thank God I didn’t take it," he said. "I would have been fired"...

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SOURCE: CNN Money