After the GT40's dismal showing at LeMans in 1965, the Ford camp headed home to regroup. By that time the GT40 program was much bigger than Shelby. Ford really wanted a GT40 victory at Le Mans, and while they trusted Shelby to run the racing team and test the car, they weren't going to trust a few California hot-rodders to do all the development work when they had an army of engineers and some of the best manufacturing facilities in the world back in Dearborn.
Ford would hold a "Come to Jesus" meeting in the fall of 1965 among the various engineers and managers working on the GT40, and come up with a strategy of further developing the big-block MkII cars for 1966 and at the same time designing a much lighter and more aerodynamic follow-on car for 1967. For 1966 both Shelby and Holman&Moody would field racing teams and develop the cars; legend has it that the H&M cars were intentionally built and driven more conservatively than Shelby's to improve their chances of finishing.
At the time, Shelby was already up to its ears in Mustangs and Cobras. The GT-350R Mustangs Shelby had built the year before were doing well and attracting attention in SCCA club races, which meant Ford wanted more of the street versions to sell through their dealerships and serve as a "halo car" to generate interest in the work-a-day Mustangs they were stamping out in record numbers. With the SCCA homologation out of the way all Ford really wanted were some slightly warmed up street Mustangs with racing stripes, and Shelby was happy to oblige - leaving out many of the suspension and engine modifications they had made on the first batch of GT-350s - but they still had to run nearly 2400 cars through their shop (including 1000 rent-a-racers for Hertz).
Then in the fall the SCCA responded to the popularity of the Mustang by inventing the Trans-Am racing series for small 4-seat sedans, which should have included the GT-350s - except Shelby had just gone to great lengths to convince the SCCA that the fastback GT-350 was a two-seater. Of course the SCCA wanted Fords in the new series as much as Ford wanted to race in it, so they worked out a deal where the notchback Mustang body-style was homologated for the Trans Am. The rules for the new series were quite a bit looser than for traditional SCCA classes, so there was no need for the games Shelby had played to become the manufacturer of the GT-350 - the Trans Am Mustangs would officially still be Ford Mustangs - but under their notch-back sheet metal the cars would get the same modifications as the GT-350Rs. Shelby would build 16 of the Trans Am cars, which quickly made their way to experienced drivers, allowing Ford to win the Manufacturer's Championship that first year of the series.
Shelby and AC had also introduced the new big-block "coil-spring" Cobra in 1965, and Shelby American was still doing final assembly of those cars. By this point, Shelby was too busy with the Mustangs and GT40s to give the new Cobra much attention. Ferrari had stopped fielding factory GTOs in the FIA GT class, leaving the new Cobras with no worthy adversary to challenge: Shelby would not build enough of the racing version of the car to be homologated for FIA racing, making it only eligible for SCCA club racing in the US, and in the fledgling USRRC series. The vast majority of the big-block cars were built as street cars for those well-heeled buyers who wanted to be sure they had the fastest car on the block.
Shelby had already handed off racing the Daytona Coupes in Europe to Alan Mann, who would run several of the cars throughout the 1965 season and finally bring home the FIA Manufacturer's Championship for Shelby American - with three year old cars! But at that point the Daytonas were just aging race cars; Ford would sell them off for cheap in Europe rather than pay to ship them back to the U.S.
Pete Brock had been working on a coupe-body for the new Cobra, but when Ford and Shelby made it clear they had no interest in racing the new Cobras he became the first high level defection from Shelby American. Brock found a deal with Hino, a big Japanese manufacturing company known for building heavy trucks that was looking to break into the US auto market; in December of 1965 he would start Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) to do some design work on a new race car and to race their dumpy Contessa sedan. It wasn't exactly Shelby's Cobra deal with Ford, but Brock was all of 29 years old, and bigger things were soon to come.
Starting in the fall of 1965 the Mustangs and Cobras would take a backseat to the GT40 at Shelby American. Phil Remington would make modifications to lighten the car, improve the aerodynamics, strengthen the chassis, and then Ken Miles would take the car out on a track and run it at racing speeds to see what worked, and then start over on another round of changes. Ford's Engine division would modify the 427 engine to be lighter and more reliable than the original NASCAR item. Kar Kraft would hand off manufacturing their new trans-axle to the Ford Transmission division, who knew how to do more careful testing and assembly to reduce failures. In short, Ford and Shelby did the fine tuning and quality assurance work they should have done the year before.
The 1966 Daytona and Sebring races (held in early spring) proved Ford had done its homework. At Daytona GT40 MkIIs placed 1-2-3-5, with just one MkII failing to finish. Also racing were four 289 powered GT40s entered by private teams, that placed no higher than 14th - the competition (Ferrari and Porsche) were getting better too.
A few weeks later at Sebring, Shelby would run an experimental GT40 "roadster" - a GT40 with the roof over the cockpit removed - an idea that didn't work as the lack of chassis stiffness ruined the handling - but the car hung on to win when the MkII in the lead broke its timing chain on the last lap of the race. Driver Dan Gurney would push his broken MkII across the finish line and be disqualified - if he had just sat in the car he would have taken 2nd - instead an H&M MkII would finish second, and a privately entered GT40 MkI would fall into 3rd, giving Ford another 1-2-3 finish. Through a combination of skill and luck, the winner of both races would be Shelby development driver Ken Miles with co-driver Loyd Ruby, who was building a reputation in Indy cars.
Making its first appearance at Sebring was a 427 Chevy-powered Chaparral coupe, looking a little like a slimmed down GT40, and built by Shelby's old Texas business partner Jim Hall. Chevy's 427 was a more modern design than Ford's now aging NASCAR motor, and the Chaparral was a lighter car; it held its own against the GT40s until mechanical problems would put it out. The Chaparral's would strike fear into the Ford engineers who knew Chevy could be a very strong competitor if they ever decided to go racing for real.
Sadly, Sebring would also mark the death of driver Bob McLean while racing a privately entered GT40 MkI; the car's brakes would seize sending it off the track and into a pole, rupturing the fuel tanks and starting a massive fire. Four spectators would also die when a Porsche went off the track and spun through an area where spectators were not supposed to be; safety at Sebring had not kept up with the increasing size of the crowds and speeds of the cars. It would be the first of several tragedies that would eventually discourage Ford from sponsoring racing teams; driver Walt Hangsen would die just a month later driving an H&M MkII in the rain at the Le Mans trials.
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| Alan Mann GT40 MkII - DNF'd at LeMans in 1966. Photographed at the Simeone Museum. |
There were no less than 13 GT40s at Le Mans for 1966, with 8 Ford "factory" cars: 3 entered by Shelby American, 3 entered by Holman&Moody, and 2 under the Alan Mann Racing banner. The list of drivers read like a who's-who of the top drivers of the day: Dan Gurney, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, a young Mario Andretti.
And of course Ken Miles, the man who had spent more time driving a GT40 than all the others combined. Miles' usual co-driver, Lloyd Ruby, had crashed his private plane a few weeks before Le Mans, knocking himself out of the race (Ruby's driving talent was exceeded only by his bad luck). That would lead to New Zelander Denny Hulme - an up and coming F1 driver - filling in at the last minute. The Miles/Hulme car would run near the front for most of the race, trading the lead with the Gurney car.
The three Shelby MkIIs driven by Gurney/Grant, McLaren/Amon and Miles/Hulme would set a brutal pace, seeming to dare the Ferrari's to keep up, and it quickly turned out neither the Ferraris or anything else could. An H&M MkII driven by Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson cruised along comfortably in fourth place in their "just-in-case" role. Then at the 17th hour, Gurney's car lost its radiator, moving the remaining MkIIs up one place. After 24 hours, only 15 of the 55 cars that had started were still running. A gaggle of Porsche 906s finished 4th through 7th, doing surprisingly well with just 2 liters of displacement. Only 2 of the 14 Ferraris entered actually finished, in 8th and 10th place. Despite all the preparation, 5 of the factory-sponsored MkIIs and the 5 privately entered MkI GT40s DNF'd. Even Phil Hill's legendary driving could not save the lone Chaparral, which DNF'd after just 6 hours.
But despite the Fords being unchallenged, the race would not be without controversy. With an hour or so left, and with 3 MkIIs comfortably leading the race, Ford PR man Leo Beebe (some say at the urging of Bruce McLaren) "requested" that the cars group up and cross the finish line 3 abreast, the perfect photo-op payoff in return for all the millions of dollars spent to win that one race. Which would have been no big deal, except against all odds after 23 hours Ken Miles and Bruce McLaren were still on the same lap. Because the Miles/Hulme car had started from the 2nd spot, and the McLaren/Amon car had started in the 4th spot, and because Le Mans was a distance race, if the two cars crossed the finish line side-by-side McLaren's car would have traveled 20 feet further than Miles's car and would win despite Miles having lead most of the race.
Miles followed the order to slow down and allow Bruce McLaren to catch up. At Le Mans in 1966, the official finish line with the electronic timer attached was actually a few feet ahead of the guy holding the checkered flag and as the cars crossed the official finish line Miles suddenly slowed, allowing McLaren to pass him and actually pass the flagman slightly ahead of Miles. Whether Miles intentionally lifted (or even tapped the brakes) to ruin Ford's picture perfect finish - while still exactly following the order - or whether McLaren took advantage of Miles slowing down to try to outright win the race is lost to history; in any event the cars were only 3 abreast for the briefest moment. Immediately afterwards Ken Miles seemed somewhat surprised to have come in 2nd; it is possible he thought he was 1 lap ahead of McLaren (or just didn't want to believe he had been asked to lose the race after all he had done for Ford). Regardless, officially Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon won the race - something many racing fans still refuse to acknowledge.
Carroll Shelby has taken responsibility for this decision, saying he discussed the request with Bebee and agreed to it, not knowing how the French officials would interpret the rule. Which is a little unbelievable, given how many times Shelby had been to Le Mans, but it was somewhat unlikely this rule had ever been applied before (or after). A popular theory is that Bebee (or even Henry Ford II) knowingly ordered Miles to lose for being a pain-in-the-ass to deal with, which would be doubly low considering that it kept Miles from being the first driver to win Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans in the same year (the triple crown of endurance racing). Just after Le Mans, Shelby would give Miles a new Lotus Cortina, maybe to say "thank you" for all Miles had done and "sorry" for a decision he quickly came to regret.
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| Bust of Ken Miles at the Shelby American Collection in Boulder, Colorado |
And then, with Shelby seemingly on top of the world, everything went to crap. Just two months later Ken Miles would die testing the next generation "J-car" at Riverside. The new car was the first complete car to come from Kar Kraft, and one of the first racing cars with a chassis built from honeycomb aluminum - it was basically one big 200 mph science-fair project. The J-car was a mid-engine design much like the GT40, but the body had a boxy rear section reminiscent of the "Breadvan" Ferrari raced by a private team a few years earlier. The long flat top of the car probably reduced drag, but at the speeds the new Ford was capable of it also made for stability problems. During a high-speed test some part of the new chassis or suspension would break and when the car subsequently rolled the honeycomb chassis basically disintegrated around Miles - he would be killed instantly.
Miles death seemed to knock the wind out of Carroll Shelby, but at that point Ford's GT40 program was literally too big to stop, or even slow down; Phil Remington and the engineers at Kar Kraft would strengthen the chassis and rework the body, closely following the design that had worked for the MkII. The car would be re-named the GT40 MkIV for the 1967 season. Shelby would again take a Ford supported team to Le Mans, and the new car would crush the competition again, with all star drivers Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt bringing home the win, and up-and-comers Bruce McLaren and Mark Donohue taking fourth.
Unlike Ferrari, who only bothered to build street cars to finance their racing team, Ford had gone to Le Mans purely for the advertising value, and like an ad campaign that has run its course endurance racing was rapidly losing its luster. In the US muscle cars and pony cars ruled the showrooms, and the new Trans Am and Can Am racing series were becoming incredibly popular. For 1968 the FIA would rewrite the rule book to outlaw the big-block American cars, setting a displacement limit of just 5 liters. Ford saw no reason to develop new cars for the new rules; they would pull the plug on the endurance racers and instead focus on Trans Am and dabble in Can Am, leaving Shelby American in a bit of a lurch.
Ford had re-styled the Mustang for the 1967 model ear, taking it more in the muscle car direction, but they still wanted a flashy Shelby version to draw buyers into showrooms. Shelby would lighten the car with a fiberglass hood, tweak the suspension and add spoilers and functional side-scoops to cool the brakes and make the car look like a first cousin of the GT40 - it was a spectacular looking car - but mechanically it was little different than a stock Mustang. Ford had designed the new Mustangs to hold their big-block V8, and offered a 390 inch version of that engine; Shelby would one-up the stock Mustang by swapping in a 428 "police interceptor" version of the big V8 to create the new GT-500 Shelby Mustang, holding the unofficial title of "Fastest Mustang" a little while longer.
The '67 GT-500 would be the last hurrah for the Shelby Mustang. With the cars selling in large numbers through Ford dealerships, and carrying hefty price tags, Ford worried about the build quality of the cars and whether Shelby's tiny shop could keep up with demand. For the 1968 model year production of the Shelby Mustangs would move to the larger facilities of the A. O. Smith company, a manufacturer of fiberglass body parts, conveniently located in Detroit. Shelby would add little more than his name to the new cars.
1967 also marked the last year for the 427 Cobra roadster; the cars were even more expensive and impractical than the earlier small-block cars and they didn't sell in large enough numbers to make much of a profit for Ford or Shelby. AC would continue to manufacture the new coil-spring version of the car powered by a small block Ford V8 and sell it in Europe for a few more years before calling it quits.
Pete Brock and Shelby would cross paths once again in 1967. Hino's plans to enter the American auto market, and Brock's deal with Hino would end when Hino merged with Toyota. But Brock had so impressed the managers at Hino that they offered him an even better deal, asking him to race Toyota's new GT2000 sports car. The GT2000 was intended to show that Toyota was capable of building world class cars; it packed a DOHC 2-liter 6 cylinder engine and clean, elegant styling with just a hint of E-type Jaguar stirred in. The car is best known in America for its appearance in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. For BRE racing the GT2000 for Toyota was the chance of a lifetime.
Except somehow just days after the Toyotas were delivered to Brock's shop, they were picked up and hauled off to Shelby's shop. Shelby had somehow scooped Brock's deal, setting off a feud between the two that would last for years. Brock would use his connections in Japan to make a deal with Nissan to race their American market Datsuns - which would prove to be a very successful relationship when the 240Zs appeared a few years later. As good as the 2000GT was, it proved to be too expensive to attract US buyers (the cars cost more than a new Corvette). Despite Shelby having a bit of success on the track, the program ended after just 1 year, becoming little more than a footnote in Shelby American history.
Shelby American would build a few more notch-back 1967 Mustangs for the Trans Am that did well and helped bring Ford another manufacturers championship, but '67 was essentially the end of Shelby's involvement in developing the TransAm cars. For the 1968 season, the SCCA would loosen the rules on Trans Am such that only the factory engineers could develop competitive engines and suspensions; Ford no longer trusted Shelby (or any other racing team) to rebuild and modify the engines in their new race cars, and not surprisingly engine reliability suffered. Ford's new Tunnel-Port 302 proved so unreliable that Ford scrapped their plan to sell the engine in a special edition Mustang.
In 1968 Shelby would take a little-remembered shot at the Indy 500, jumping on the turbine car bandwagon. He would team with Ken Wallis, who had developed the STP turbine car the year before to build an all new car. The Indy establishment had just weathered the change to rear-engined cars and were not at all happy about the turbine cars taking over; they passed rules limiting the air-intake size to make the turbines un-competitive. Shelby would eventually withdraw from the race, but his willingness to "bend" the rules caused Phil Remington to resign; he would take a job at Holman&Moody (he would return to California a short time later to work for Dan Gurney's All American Racers for the next 40 years). It was the end of an era: Pete Brock, Ken Miles and Phil Remington - the 3 men most responsible for Shelby's success - were gone. Many of the mechanics and shop workers who had assembled the Cobras and Mustangs and maintained the GT40s were let go in a big layoff, and then in dribs and drabs as the various future projects that had been in the works fell through.
With little else to do, Shelby would run a Ford backed Trans Am team for the '68 and '69 seasons, but without much success; thanks to Roger Penske and Mark Donohue rival Chevy would win the TransAm Manufacturer's Championship in '68 and '69. With the end of the muscle car era in sight Ford would pull the plug on their support for the Trans Am after the '69 season, leaving it up to the Bud Moore team and top-driver Parnelli Jones, running with little factory backing, to bring home one more Manufacturer's Championship for Ford in 1970.
In late 1966 Ford offered Shelby's old friend John Wyer a chance to buy the parts and tooling left from the original GT40 program in England; Wyer would team up with British Ford dealer and retired racer John Willment to form JW Automotive, a racing team with sponsorship from Gulf Oil. Even though the FIA now limited engine displacement to 5 liters, small-block American V8 engines had come a long way since Ford had decided to use the 7 liter NASCAR engine in 1965; JWA would use what were essentially Trans Am engines in the original (and lighter) GT40 chassis, and would be competitive in endurance racing for two more years, including wins at Le Mans in '68 and '69. Shelby had little if any involvement in the project.
Shelby Automotive Racing - the new name for what was left of Shelby American - would close its doors in late 1969 and end its relationship with Ford in early 1970, but by then very little was left to close down. Carroll Shelby would bounce around the world, getting married a few more times and putting his name on various business ventures - some more successful than others. In 1990 he would receive a heart transplant, and in 1996 his son would give him a kidney, which kept him going until May 10, 2012 when old age finally caught up to him. But it was those few shining years from 1962 to 1967 - the Cobra and GT40 years - when Shelby would cement his name in automotive history.
You can look back and say Shelby was just lucky to always be in the right place at the right time, but he did it so consistently that you have to think he somehow made his own luck. More than anything, Shelby's story is a testament to what can be accomplished by daring to do bold things and then just not giving up. As Woody Allen put it "80% of success is just showing up", and Carroll Shelby always showed up.
Shelby was a freakishly good driver, an amazing deal-maker, and at times a genuine SOB, but his success at Shelby American came from his ability to find good people who shared his enthusiasm and passion and then let them do their job. Beyond the few names I've mentioned here were many talented mechanics, welders, machinists, body and paint men, aspiring race drivers - all working at Shelby American to build and race the cars that would make Shelby a legend - names you will find only as brief mentions in the most detailed histories of the Shelby era (if you're interested I suggest reading the book Inside Shelby American by race driver John Morton, who got his start pushing a broom at Shelby's shop).
Carroll Shelby certainly earned his fame and reputation, and while it was his name on the cars, countless others provided the heart, soul and sweat that made it possible.
Great Read, thanks for Taking the time to write it.
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