This quote was given to me about 30 years ago as I set out to find the original Mustang Independent Rear Suspension. It’s been quite an adventure.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
Elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas
And splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
Then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that
Would never otherwise have occurred.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 1749 – 1832
Wally Peat, Shelby race car mechanic and fabricator, was showing me through his personal files when he came upon a picture of himself sitting on the back of a ’64 Falcon.
“See that lower control arm? That car had an independent rear suspension Ford was developing for the Mustang, which used the Falcon platform.”
I said I’d like to find one of those.
“Ford only made two or three, and they were all crushed, but if anybody had one it’d be Carroll Shelby,” said Wally.
Summoning up all my courage, I called Carroll who, after some conversation, transferred me to Lew Spencer. Lew was Shelby’s “chief of staff,” and he referred me to someone named Klaus Arning, who was Ford’s suspension guy, back in the day.
“Probably long retired, but maybe still in the Detroit area.”
Information gave me a number for Klaus. As the designer and multiple patent holder for the I.R.S., he was interested in my project. Fortuitously, Klaus and his wife were planning a trip which, with a few
adjustments, could route them through Utah. The Henry Ford Museum archives had partial prints for the mystery I.R.S., so Klaus stopped by to pick up some copies.
“I show them my credentials… they give me the microfilm,” he intoned in his rich Teutonic accent.
Finally, I had something in my hand other than hope. We spent some time in my garage with the prints and the rear ½ of an original Mustang as Klaus explained the finer points of suspension design. Great guy, very entertaining and VERY smart.
We became good friends, talked frequently, and attended the S.E.M.A. show in Vegas together for years. Klaus knew everybody. For some reason we went to Palm Springs in Nov. of 1990 for AN EVENING WITH CARROLL SHELBY a.k.a. The SHELBY ROAST, which benefitted Shel’s Children’s Heart Fund.
As the evening got late, Lee Holman Jr. of Holman & Moody racing stopped by our table, as Klaus had known his late father. Lee sat down and we told him of our quest to find the Mustang I.R.S.
Lee said, “I know where there is one.”
In late ‘67, after Ford and Shelby won Le Mans for the second time (if you haven’t seen Ford v Ferrari, please do so soon) Henry Ford II told Shelby the money spigot had closed. He was sending his stock car guys, Holman & Moody, to clean out Shel’s airport facility (since Ford had paid for it all) and terminate the lease on the two hangers.
“You’re out of business!”
Some say 6, some say 12, as the number of empty 18 wheelers H & M convoyed from Charlotte to L.A. to clean out Shelby’s facility. Ralph Moody was apparently a bit of a “pack rat,” and sources say he even took the cover plates off the electrical outlets. Under a work bench was a box that held some sort of suspension system, and Ralph packed it off to Charlotte.
H. F. II gave the same bad news to Holman & Moody about 6 months later, after promising their relationship was forever! Both partner’s deaths and 10 years later, Lee Holman Jr. was holding a garage sale to stave off bankruptcy. An eccentric collector from Oxford GA. bought the box of I.R.S. pieces for scrap value and stored it in his peach orchard.
After a couple of letters, phone calls and a personal visit, three greasy boxes wrapped in duct tape showed up on my doorstep. The deal was I could use the pieces to make tooling if I returned them along with a complete working I.R.S. ready to bolt into a Falcon he had that supposedly had one back in the day.
I called Wally, took my video camera, and we opened the boxes for what we both knew was going to be an historic adventure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyKDiKf4CxA
For the next 20 years or so I sold the I.R.S. as a kit to fit vintage Mustangs. I met some great people along the way.
John Clor of Ford published several stories on the I.R.S. including this multi-page blockbuster, THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW AN IRS MADE FOR MUSTANG WON LE MANS.
The story mentions the Original Venice Crew (O.V.C.) and Peter Brock, my favorite design icon. I knew Peter from the days when he was building hang gliders, and had just found an old blueprint machine that made real blueprints using ammonia. I knew Peter would appreciate seeing a full size (3 ft. x 5 ft.) hand drawn print, done way before Computer Aided Drafting (CAD).
“Funny you should drop by,” said Peter. “A bunch of the original Venice guys led by Jim Marietta are going to build some continuation GT 350s, and I bet they’d like to use that I.R.S.” \
We put some of the crew back together, and after giving Road and Track a ride in our first prototype, they declared it one of their 10 FAVORITE CARS OF THE DECADE!
Craig Jackson of BARRETT-JACKSON collector car auctions called one day shortly thereafter to say he had found the last two prototypes Shelby built in ’67, just before Ford pulled the plug. Intended for the 1968 model year, they were named the GREEN HORNET and LITTLE RED. Both were presumed lost, crushed, long ago.
The Hornet had digital fuel injection decades before Detroit built one, and the I.R.S. first ran on that Falcon way back in 1964.
When Craig found I had some ORIGINAL parts, hand-made by Klaus’ design team, he wanted not my replicas but the original pieces, which I had since
acquired.
That seemed like a good end to the I.R.S. project, after all those years. The original parts in the original car … yeah, that sounds right. Jim Marietta bought my tooling and jigs and the adventure was almost over.
Craig is friends with Edsel Ford II, who as a teenager was on the podium with his father, Henry II, when Ford and Shelby first won Le Mans back in ‘66. In exchange for Craig’s $1,100,000 donation to Edsel’s diabetes foundation, Ford Motor Co. built a special Mustang replicating the original Hornet. Roger Penske’s shop took a Shelby Mustang in primer off the production line, painted it Lime Gold Metallic, a 1967 color, then laid on Candy Apple Green with a deep clear coat, just like the original. All the labor
and materials were donated as a tribute to the people and the story they represent!
In the video that follows, you’ll meet Ralph Arning, Klaus’ son, good friend and 40-year veteran at Ford, and Jason Aker, Craig’s ace restorer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-2Mpal8GA&t=1643s
Jim Marietta and I had dinner with Edsel II and his son, Henry III, at Cannery Row the year our car, 98 I, was the poster shot for the Monterey Historic races (the primogeniture at Ford goes Henry I, Edsel I, Henry II, Edsel II, etc.).
After dinner Greg Miller (Larry H. Miller Cos.) dropped by to announce he’d just purchased the first Cobra ever built, Shelby’s personal car, for about 12 Million and change. Quite a night.
Thank you, PROVIDENCE and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
