The first Grabber Painted Mustangs were the 1969 Shelby GT350 and GT500 with Grabber Blue, Grabber Orange, Grabber Green, and Grabber Yellow. It wasn't until the next year, in 1970, that the standard Mustang models used the same four Grabber colors. In 1971, Mustang replaced Grabber Orange with Grabber Lime; in 1972, dropped all but Grabber Blue; and then stopped the early Mustang year's Grabber tradition with a Light Grabber Blue in 1974, while skipping 1973. In 2007, Grabber Orange was back by popular demand, and in 2014 it was be replaced by Grabber Blue which extended off and on to 2021. Now, in 2020, Grabber Lime makes a re-appearance but as a metallic paint. There were 24 offerings of Grabber Paint in 15 of the 56 production years of the Mustang. Follow this link to see photos of all Grabber painted Mustangs on this site.





In 1969, Shelby stopped modifying Mustangs and sold the remaining cars in work in 1970. How do you tell a 1969 Shelby Mustang from a carry over 1970 Shelby Mustang? Besides the first digit in the VIN, the hood of all 1970 Shelby Mustangs had black stripes.





1970 was the first year of the Grabber Paints on production Mustangs. Three selections were Grabber Blue, Grabber Orange, and Grabber Green which were very popular on the Mach 1, Boss 302 and Boss 429 special sports models. Grabber Yellow was also available in 1970 but only on the remaining Shelby Mustang's carried over from 1969 production. Competition Yellow was available in 1970 as a standard Mustang color and was the same paint as Shelby Grabber Yellow, so in 1971 it was renamed Grabber Yellow due to the popularity of the Grabber colors.





In 1971, a new Grabber color was introduced: Grabber Lime which joined the renamed 1970 Corporate Yellow as Grabber Yellow and Grabber Green and Grabber Blue. After 1971, the Grabber colors only came back periodically with only one color offering each special year. Grabber Orange is the offering today.





2007 saw the return of one of the grabber colors: Grabber Orange. Unfortunantly for Yellow Mustang fans, Grabber Orange replaced yellow as a standard exterior Mustang color. The popularity of Grabber Orange has allowed other Grabber colors to come back.





Grabber Blue returned as a standard color in the 2010-2014 model year, as well as 2017 and 2021.





The Grabber Lime paint name returns as a new metallic color in 2020. This is the first time the Grabber name is assigned to a metallic paint.





Index to All Grabber Painted Mustangs