The latest news from Mustang IRS
I saved this January 1967 issue of Sports Car Graphic magazine for some reason. I love this article by Philip W. May, which predicts the demise of the internal cumbustion engine. And it all seems to be coming true. Even the I.C.E. agents! Check it out. It’s a fun read.
I was curious about the author, so I looked him up. Sadly, he left us all behind last July. R.I.P., Mr. May.
–Duane
Craig Jackson bought an I.R.S. from us last year, for his barn find The Green Hornet
When Ford moved Shelby production to Detroit from L.A. they built 2 coupe prototypes for the ’68 production run. The first was a red ’67 with a dual supercharged 428 Police Interceptor engine, and was known as Little Red. The second was known as The Green Hornet, with black spray on top that looks like vinyl, candy apple green paint, a Conelec fuel injected 428 motor and a factory designed independent rear suspension (I.R.S.).
Craig loves Shelbys, and is particularly fond of rare Shelby prototypes. He has found both of these cars. The Hornet is complete, and Little Red is being restored as we speak.
Stay tuned to this space for further information on a DOCUMENTARY about the restoration of these cars !!
You can read a pretty good history of the I.R.S. by going to the MEDIA section of this site and clicking on both issues of Racecar Engineering. Just for fun click, on Shelby’s Mambo also on the same page. The car in that story in Little Red.
Craig bought this on-of-one 2020 Shelby prototype for $1,100,00 at Friday’s auction to benefit CHILDREN’S DIABETES FOUNDATION.
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Since there isn’t a lot happening in the car world during chilly December, especially in freezing Utah, I thought I’d spin a little yarn about our recent trip to DOVE CREEK, CO.
Now, D.C. happens to be the PINTO BEAN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD (betcha
didn’t know that, didja?) and it’s just across the UT/ CO border, about an hour south & east of Moab.
We’re helping a friend move into her new place, so it was a “working vacation.” The heart of D.C. is the DOVE CREEK SUPERETTE, where, as the song goes, “WE KEEP OUR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS UP ON OUR FRONT PORCH ALL YEAR LOG.”
Great, friendly people here. It’s a deli, supermarket, cultural center, and who knows what else. It’s right next to the feed store, and not too far from the Post Office. This was our third visit to town, and we already feel like we belong.
Unfortunately the nearest lumberyard is in Cortez, about 40 miles east, and we made 3 trips there in a day and a half. Oh well, great scenery. If you love high altitude, and wide open spaces, at 6,844 feet up you’ll love this area.
This part of the country is dominated by the Colorado River. It has cut thru the red and white sand stone to create some truly stunning vistas. If you saw the Pixar movie CARS–One, Two, or Three–starring car guy Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, you’ll recognize the mountains between Moab and D.C. as Radiator Springs (radiators spring leaks, get it?). Supposedly John Lasseter’s wife insisted he take some time off with the family after doing the movie TOY STORY, so they rented a motor home and toured the desert southwest. While John was supposedly relaxing he cooked up the plot for CARS. The red rock scenery, the semi abandoned little towns, and of course lottsa old cars, who could resist that ! John’s dad managed a Chevrolet parts department, back in the day, and John delivered parts to car shops all around SoCal, so if the disease is heritable, he got it.
When the PIXAR artists began the CARS project, John wisely contacted Dave “Big” Deal. Dave is a car guy, BAJA record holder, author & artist, and had been bringing cars to life thru cartoons for years. He spent 2 days with the PIXAR artists (it was standing room only) showing them how to give two dimensional drawings of cars life and personality.
They apparently learned a lot. Dave passed away in 2008 but his influence lives on in his art.
Any visit to this area must include a visit to RAY’S TAVERN in Green River UT. Home of killer burgers and way cold beer, it is the sacred ancestral home of the SHITFERBRANZ RIVER EXPEDITIONS. If you’ve never been down the Colorado in a small boat, you just don’t know what “near death” really looks like. Our kinda guys.
Well, stay tuned for our next adventure , which (we hope) will be the BARRETT JACKSON auto auctions in Scottsdale, the second week of Jan. The prototype ‘68 Shelby known as the GREEN HORNET will be there, with Conelec fuel injection and its original Independent Rear Suspension. The HORNET’s sister LITTLE RED, a ’68 Shelby sporting a supercharged 427 stuffed under its hood will be the side dish. Great cars ! We’ll be there with our Ford/Shelby friends. Lotsa fun, some very tall tales, and some possibly even true!
Merry Christmas,
Duane
This is another masterful work by Karl Ludvigsen, in the manner of Excellence Was Expected, the definitive Porsche book, and Corvette – America’s Star Spangled Sports Car.
While Porsche and Corvette have massive fan bases, Reid Railton has to be the least well known famous designer in the world. His many accomplishments barely fix into this substantial tome (848 PAGES). Retailing at around $220 dollars, that’s a little over 3 cents per page. Heck of a deal.
When England was having a hard time fielding a winning Le Mans car due to a lack of testing facilities on the home island, where the national speed limit was 20 M.P.H., Hugh Lock King carved out a piece of his family estate in 1907 to establish Brooklands. The 2.75 mile motor racing circuit that was and is the world’s first purpose built racetrack.
Reid Railton, born in 1895 got his start as an engineer and designer with Leyland in 1916, and established his own manufactory at Brooklands in shortly thereafter.
Scores of companies established their homes in the Brooklands infield in what would now be known as a “technology hub.” Cross pollination between aircraft, automobiles and water craft was rampant. Racing results immediately improved and victories soon followed.
The E.R.A. (English Racing Assn.) one liter and 1 ½ liter open-wheel cars benefited from his expertise, as did the Riley sedans and sports cars, and of course Leland. By special arrangement with the U.S. manufacturer Hudson, Reid produced the Railton brand automobile, a rebodied and improved Hudson that sold well for a time in Europe.
By 1938 the Railton Special (later the Railton Mobile Special) held several records on the Utah salt flats in the neighborhood of 400 miles per hour. Contributing to speed records on the water and in the air, everywhere you look Mr. Railton’s name seems to pop up.
When the War came, Railton applied his knowledge and intuition to the aircraft that defeated Hitler’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. One could make the case that there wouldn’t be much of an English racing heritage, or maybe even an England at all, without the ministrations of Reid Railton, the most famous designer that most people have never heard of.
Reid Railton died in 1977 in Berkeley California.
Dear Car F(r)iends
With the recent passing of Burt Reynolds, clips from his movies have been all over the TV. One of his best-known films is The Cannonball Run.
As most of you probably know, the Cannonball Run–officially known as the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash–was a real underground race across the USA, run a few times in the 1970s.
Besides protesting speed limits, the race creators really wanted to test which vehicle was best to drive long and fast, coast-to-coast in real-world conditions. The best American cars (and trucks), as well as European cars and exotics, competed head-to-head.
A team of filmmakers is working on a feature-length real Cannonball Run documentary about this iconic secret race. If you were there or have Cannonball material please get in touch with them. They found several of the Cannonball outlaw racers and even hunted down a few surviving real Cannonball Run cars.
I managed to catch up with one Cannonballer and his car the documentary crew had not located yet: Ed Brewerton and the American Motors AMX he ran with his brother Tom in the 1971 and 1972 Cannonballs. Here is our short interview for you:
If you prefer to view this video at higher quality, you can find it on our website.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see the finished documentary!
Keep on drivin’,
Duane
If you were going to take up an activity that would cover all aspects of motorsport, what would it be? Between boats, planes, bikes, dragsters, etc. etc., about the only commonality I can think of in motorsports is the burning of hydrocarbons. Turns out I’m wrong.
Timing and scoring events crosses all boundaries, from IndyCar, NHRA to NASCAR to road racing to land speed racing, all need timing and scoring. The person who wrote the book on the specialty of timing for teams, literally–THE STROPUS GUIDE TO AUTO RACE TIMING AND SCORING–in 1975 is Judy Stropus. She has been in the pits and on the timing stand for just about every top team in the early days of the sport, B.C. (Before Computers).
How about the Bud Moore Trans Am Cougars and the AMC Javelin team in Trans-Am? Judy was timing for Roger Penske when Mark Donohue won the Indy 500 in 1972. Mark left the Indy 500 festivities to give Judy a ride to the airport for her next assignment, timing for Peter Brock and the BRE Datsuns. You name it, Judy’s been there…done that.
Back in the day, before gigabyte computers, it took some teams multiple stop watches and incredible concentration to keep track of multiple drivers, yours and your competition’s, for 12 or more hours. Judy had the talent to use just one stopwatch to keep track of all the cars during qualifying and practice. Her ability to sit for the entire 24 hours at Daytona and LeMans and score each car in the race for the entire time without stopping became her trademark.
If you were going to be in the business of scoring, you had to be born with the right stuff. Judy says it’s much like race car driving. She found she had a near “savant” ability to do that when she started attending club races with her then boyfriend, who was driving a Jaguar XK120 as a member of the Queens (County) Sports Car Club in New York. That’s a long way from traveling on Roger Penske’s private jet, but Judy’s ability was quickly recognized. “The girls all did the timing and scoring, and they were surprised at how good I was, never having done it before.” When her ability became widely known, and after the Cougar team discovered her, two years later Roger asked her, “Why aren’t you working for me?”… and a 20-plus-year timing career flourished.
During that time, Judy also ran her own public relations company, JVS Enterprises, which represented a number of high-profile clients such as Chevrolet, BMW, Duracell, Mattel, etc. Currently, although she is semi-retired, she continues to work on P.R. projects, including representing EVRO Publishing in the U.K. promoting such books as David Hobbs’ autobiography, “Hobbo: Motor Racer, Motor Mouth,” and her mentor Karl Ludvigsen’s “magisterial” two-volume treatise entitled “Reid Railton, Man of Speed.” Karl is one of the pillars of automotive journalism. Porsche, Lotus, BRM, Corvette, Novi and many others have had their Definitive Archetypal Marque Histories written by Mr. Ludvigsen. The fact he recommended Judy Stropus to promote his latest, and most extensive effort, says a lot about Judy’s standing in the (mostly male) automotive world.
I asked Judy what has been her biggest barrier in her career, in particular as a race-car driver. “I’ve been very much accepted in my profession as a timer and a P.R. person, but when I decided to race cars, it was whom I call the ‘I.A.M.s…Insecure Adult Males…’ who tended to resent me. That didn’t last long as I quickly improved and managed to beat them regularly. I’ve been fortunate to have won several awards over the years, including the Jim Chapman Award for my P.R. work and the RRDC Bob Akin Award for my overall accomplishments as a racer, so I do feel very well accepted in this business.”
Judy competed in the Brock Yates-organized Cannonball Run in 1972, and the actress Adrienne Barbeau played a part very loosely based on her in the movie. Judy says, “I don’t like to talk about it, because one of our drivers fell asleep and rolled the limo we were driving. Fortunately no one was seriously injured. But if you Google my name, the Cannonball Run is one of the first things that pops up.
“One of the achievements I’m proud of is helping set up (for BMW) the Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya ‘car swap,’ in which they drove each other’s cars on the Grand Prix circuit at Indianapolis Raceway in June of 2003. Jeff drove the Williams F1 BMW FW25 and Juan drove the NASCAR Chevrolet. They both said it was one of the highlights of their careers, and it got huge press.”
Judy is a member of the road Racing Drivers Club (RRDC) and has been honored in just about all the top levels of auto racing and public relations. Born in Kaunas, Lithuania “many years ago,” Judy resides in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
–Duane Carling
The Carroll Shelby Tribute is held every year in mid-May to honor the great man who died May 10, 2012. This year’s tribute was held at the Shelby Gardena, California facility, which is also home to The Original Venice Crew (O.V.C.). The O.V.C. builds “continuation” Shelby GT 350 Competition Models, also known as “R Models.”
There are two other iconic performance car manufacturers making “Continuation Models” from the same time period. One of the manufacturers is Jaguar and the other is Aston-Martin. Each of these car builders is producing only 25 Continuation Models. Jaguar is reproducing the “D” Type, a race winning car of the late 50’s and the 60’s. Aston-Martin is reproducing the “DB-4, ” another iconic race car, driven by the renowned Sterling Moss.
The Jaguar continuation model is selling for a reported $1,400,000. The car is available for race tracks only, it is not able to be registered for street driving.
The Aston-Martin, DB-4 continuation model is selling for a reported $2,100,000. Again, the Aston is for the track only and not able to be registered for street driving.
The OVC Shelby Mustang G.T. 350 continuation model is selling for approximately $250,000. The G.T.350 is able to be registered for street use as well as a competitive track car.
Since the GT 350 raced against the Jaguar D-Type and the Aston Martin DB-4 GT, and both Aston & Jag are also building “continuation” cars, the O.V.C. Crew took the opportunity to issue a $100,000 winner –take- all challenge. The challenge issued is:
Bring your continuation cars to Willow Springs Raceway in California, and if the GT 350R cannot beat both the Jag & the Aston, the O.V.C. will donate $100,000 to the charity of their choosing. If the Shelby wins, we will donate $35,000 to the Carroll Shelby Foundation among other charities.
So far only Jaguar has responded. They have customers in the U.S. who “May be interested in the challenge.” That’s all we’ve heard. Aston is mildly interested but indicated the Company has no pro-type cars to compete, therefore it would be their customers who may take-up the challenge.
When most people think of Aston Martin they think of the DB-5, the James Bond car, machine guns and all, when Roger Moore was playing the Bond character. Roger actually drove a DB -5 in the Cannonball Run movie (see previous post). He was pretending to be slightly mentally deranged, and claiming to be Roger Moore (get it). The DB-5 claims the title of “The Most Famous Car In The World.”
The DB-4 GT sports a 3.7 liter all aluminum triple carb straight 6 producing 374 horsepower. With a 5 speed transmission it does 0–60 in 8 seconds with a top speed of 145 M.P.H. Aston offered 25 continuation cars at 1.9 million each, and quickly sold out.
Aston made 75 DB4 GTs and 8 of them were light weights destined for racing . The continuation cars will be built to light weight specs by the newly formed Aston Martin works, in the original building at Newport Pagnell, which has been unoccupied for 10 years. The new group in the refurbished building is hoping to do more continuation projects.
You will recall Carroll won Le Mans back in 1952 in an Aston DBR-1 co-driven by Roy Salvadori. That win put Aston Martin into the same league as Ferrari and the other top marques of the day.
Jaguar would only say their 25 continuation light weight D Types presold immediately for “significantly more’ than 1 million pounds.” At current exchange rates that’s about 1.33 million Yankee dollars. The chaps at Brown’s Lane had intended to build 18 light weights, back in the day, but a fire stopped production at 12. The new cars will carry serial numbers continuing the original sequence.
The C Type (1951), the D Type (1955), and the E Type (1961) Jaguars were all designed by Malcolm Sayer. Malcolm applied mathematical principles of aerodynamics to the body design which he learned from a German professor before the war. During WW II Malcolm worked for the Bristol aircraft company, where he helped design the Bristol Beaufighter, a twin engine fighter bomber with a top speed of 333 M P H, which was very fast for its day.
Interestingly, the aluminum bodies are riveted, instead of welded, as was the practice in WW II fighter planes. The alloy bodies save 205 lbs. New wooden patterns had to be made to cast the engine block and heads as the originals had been thrown out, a considerable expense. Each motor produces about 340 horses, with chain drive dual overhead cams and triple Webers. Transmission is a 4 speed, and all cars must meet F.I.A. specs (see previous posts).
Well things keep getting curiouser and cursiouser as we dive down this mid-60s rabbit hole. Lottsa fun, lottsa bucks (none of them mine), and where it stops nobody knows. See ya next post !
Dear car friends:
We just shipped our first European order. The car had to meet Federation International Automobile (F. I. A.) specifications, which are a little different than we are used to. The Federation International Automobile is the authority that supposedly regulates all automobile racing in the civilized world. I suppose that includes Southern California.
Actually it makes some sense historically. In 1965 Alan Mann Racing out of London raced modified Mustangs coupes before Lee Iacocca asked Shelby to turn the new Mustang fastback into a race car. Ol’ Shel took advantage of some of that groundwork, and of course Holman & Moody built some killer Falcons that won their class in the Monte Carlo Rally (remember Grace Kelly & Prince Rainer ?) before Mustangs even were. The Mustang, of course, was built on the Falcon platform. There’s a gnome in Switzerland with documents and photos that we had to satisfy before our customer could race his car in Europe…took a little doing.
JEREMY HALL -LEFT JIM MARIETTA -RIGHT Signature wall behind
Jim Marietta & I went to dinner with Jeremy Hall his last night in town at the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach. Jeremy is based out of London, and is the F.I.A. inspector for the U.S. The Portofino was the finish line for the Cannonball Run, a no holds barred race organized a few years back by the late Brock Yates, publisher of Car & Driver magazine. The plan was to see who could get from the Red Ball Garage in N.Y.C. to the Portofino in the shortest time, by any route, driving your choice of vehicle. There were several movies made about it, including one staring Bert Reynolds. Google “Cannonball Run.” Designer and fellow O.V.C. member Peter Brock, ran the first race with a couple of friends all dressed up as priests, while driving a tricked out Mercedes sedan. Bibles and religious statues were strewn on the dash, sort of like ticket repellent.
Brock Yates and co-driver Dan Gurney won that race driving a Ferrari Daytona. Dan said they drove responsibly, “Never went over 170.” Coincidentally, that was as fast as the car would go. I think Brock Yates would approve of the car we built. The motor makes about 455 ponies out of 289 cubic inches. Our “normal” car makes 440 horse power out of 330 cubes. I guess that proves the old saying “Nothing beats cubic inches…except cubic money.
We took the F.I.A. car to Willow Springs race track 3 times to get everything working right. Our test driver Rick Titus (son of original Team Shelby driver Jerry Titus) tested it against the I.R.S. prototype car. He said the I.R.S. car is more nimble and predictable in the corners, but the F.I.A. car could “Run off and hide on the straights.” As you may recall, when we finished the I.R.S. car we took it to the Shelby & Ford Nationals in Tulsa where it won its first race, so it’s no slouch. I’m looking forward to the F.I.A. car setting the tracks in Europe on fire. 455 horses in a 2,800 pound car…like killing flies with a sledge hammer.
It occurred to me that after we get all 36 of the Continuation Competition Models finished, some of us may be joining Mr. Shelby at that sports bar in the sky, or the sports bar in that other place. Either way it’s been a hell of an adventure.
My son Michael taking a farewell shot as our offspring leaves for battle in Europe.
The Shelby GT350R continues to get some great press, this time from Autoblog.com. Check it out to get a feel for what it’s like to drive the car.
The OVC Mustangs continue to get some great press! There’s a new article in Fuel Curve.
