Hoping to score a 2018 Shelby GT350? It looks like the odds are stacked a bit higher against you. (Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company)

Back in April, Ford made a big deal about extending the as-is Shelby GT350 into the 2018 model year. What we didn’t know at the time is that the flat-plane-crank-powered ultra ’Stang’s production run would be much shorter than that of its restyled Mustang GT cousin.

According to a new Ford dealer memorandum, which recently leaked on the web, the 2018 Shelby production run will only last seven months, where the 2017 run carried on for a full year. That means Ford will build about 40 percent fewer Shelby GT350s in its final year of production.

A new Ford dealer memo leaked online shows that the Shelby GT350’s production volumes will be much lower than those of the 2017 model year.

This should make the collectors happy and assuage those 2015-2017 owners who were banking on a shorter run. It also may mean those dreaded adjusted dealer markups will linger.

If you are in the market for a Shelby GT350R, that could be especially true, as the R-model production run will only sustain for five months, which Ford estimates will result in a 55-percent reduction in volume, meaning that R could stand for rare.

The production run for both 2018 Shelby GT350 models is set to kick off on October of this year and conclude in early June of 2018. This could clear the way for production of the next-gen halo Mustangs that have been spotted running around the Motor City in camouflage…