“I’m sorry to trouble you Mr. Shelby, but the brass cannon is missing off the front porch of the Governor’s mansion, and we have reports some of your people were seen carrying it through town.”
So began another chapter in the story of Carroll Shelby’s GANGSTERS. An evening spent with Wally Peat, chief mechanic on the King Cobras turned up some great stories.
Dave MacDonald and his new Corvette
It seems when the 1963 Corvette Stingray came out, Wally, Dave MacDonald, and his entire crew each bought one, drove them to Laguna Seca (now Weather Tech Raceway) for the final stop on the 1963 Pro Tour. Having arrived early they parked them smack against the fence of the Ford pits. When Carroll arrived he yelled, “You gangsters get the hell out of the pits with those damned Chevrolets!”
The name stuck, and the Gangsters went into history for their adventures both on and off the track.
The Laguna race started well. Bob Holbert beat the track record by 2 seconds in practice, but knocked himself out of the race after a minor shunt with another car. Dave MacDonald in the other King Cobra managed to win after Jimmy Clark trimmed the oil cooler off his Lotus 19 with a corner apex marker.
This of course was cause for a party. Wally, Dave, Dave Friedman, Joe Frettas, Don Pike, Craig Lang, and the rest of the Gangsters had “borrowed” the champagne (all of it!) supplied by Ford for a pre-race reception and stashed it in their unmentionable cars.
Naturally they proceeded to have a running champagne fight through the streets of Monterey.
Nassau Speed Week followed Laguna Seca as the final outing of the year. The good part of racing on the rough five mile Nassau airport circuit was the test it gave the chassis and suspension components. The really good part was that the transportation, lodging and entry/garage space was all FREE! All paid for by the Bahamian Government.
L – R Peyton Cramer, Cecil Bowman, Dave & Sherry MacDonald, Craig Lang,
Red Pierce, unknown.
The GREAT part was the 5-day party between the two weekends of competition, with all the world’s racing elite in attendance, as well as a bunch of potential sponsors and well-heeled customers.
L R Sherry, Dave, Wally Peat
The nightly parties got wilder and wilder, fueled by Caribbean music and pitchers of Planters Punch, until one of the Gangsters suggested a raid to steal the brass cannon from the Governor’s Mansion. An elaborate plan was perfected by some of the greatest racing strategists in the world. Under cover of darkness and fog of mind, the heist was pulled off and the booty tied under the floor of the Ford transporter.
Some sharp-eyed citizen noticed 20 or so noisy revelers dressed in full Shelby racing attire carrying a cannon down the main street of town, and informed Ol‘ Shel and the cops. When they arrived to search the Ford pits, someone had untied the cannon and RE-STOLEN IT! Wally doesn’t know for sure who did the dirty deed, but rumors were his first two initials were A. J.
Unfortunately both King Cobras went out with suspension failure and the three Cobras entered were introduced to the new CORVETTE GRAND SPORT … with disastrous result.
In May of 1964 a whole new King Cobra was designed by Pete Brock, which was to become known as the Lang Cooper. Craig Lang was an Olympia Beer heir from Seattle, and a close friend of Dave MacDonald, and later Shelby and his manager Al Dowd.
In Shelby’s Southern California studio you rolled the engine/chassis out into the sun, put a sheet of plywood on a pair of saw horses, and designed the car on the spot, with the guy who was going to build it, the guy who was going to pay for it, and the guy who was going to race it. Today they call that “Interactive Management.” Using the latest Cooper chassis, with California designed suspension, it retains its classic beauty today.
Henry Ford II had his sights set on winning Le Mans with the GT-40 and retained Shelby to manage his effort. The GT-350 was coming on, and Shelby shifted his attention to bigger fish. The Competition Cobra Division was allowed to shrink and eventually die.
What Wally says of those days: “We worked on cars for a living, but what we really did was chase women and raise hell!”
As Shelby himself said a few years after the Gangsters split up, “There’s too damn many suits and ties around this place, and it’s no damn fun anymore!”
Many thanks to Wally Peat, Rich MacDonald and Dave Friedman for contributing to this story.