By now every car lover knows who Carroll Shelby was
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00:00 Hey, it's Alana. This is Hot Rod Unlimited, and today we're going Shelby racing at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California
00:06 The Shelby American Automobile Club also known as SAC is an enthusiast group devoted to preserving the history of Carroll Shelby and the numerous
00:24 cars he helped create. From Cobras to Mustangs to Dodge Dakotas,
00:27 the club's annual convention is the best place to see rare and valuable Shelby vehicles.
00:31 Since the history of Shelby is also a history of American racing, SAC meets include track time.
00:36 There's nothing like the sound of all those Ford V8s on the track.
00:39 Of course an original Shelby Cobra is worth something like $800,000,
00:49 so even though there are a few real cars on the track, many of the owners build replicas for race
00:53 competition and save the original cars for the show field. We like them all, so we're going to meet some owners and hopefully talk them
00:59 into giving us a ride. We're here at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California
01:03 celebrating our 38th annual national convention. Shelby was a race car driver who had a heart problem
01:11 and he was forced to stop racing, but he wanted to be in the car business, so he created a Cobra Roadster,
01:16 which was a Ford engine and an English two-seat body, and that was in
01:21 1962. And he started with that and he also had the dream that he would have a team of drivers
01:28 and they would race against Ferrari and Corvette and become the national champion and the world champion, and that actually
01:35 happened. When Ford came out with the Mustang, a lot of people saw it as a secretary's car.
01:40 It didn't have a lot of power, it didn't have a lot of pizzazz, and so they turned to Shelby, almost their hired performance gun,
01:48 and they asked him to modify a car and make it into its own model, and that's how the Shelby GT 350 came about.
01:56 And it just spiraled from there. Hard to believe we've had 37 other conventions.
02:02 We've been to almost every racetrack in the country.
02:04 We've got people driving their car on the track, safe as possible at high speeds,
02:09 so they don't have to worry about going out on the public roads and impressing everybody with the horsepower.
02:15 I'm here with Steve Glom in a 1970 Shelby Mustang that he's racing here today.
02:19 And tell me a little bit about your car, Steve.
02:21 Well, actually the car started out as a Grand America car, and then 25 years ago
02:26 we decided that we wanted to make it into a Shelby.
02:29 So with my help and my partner, we put the Shelby body on it and we've raced it now for the last 25 years.
02:34 So you have a racing partner, so there's two of you guys driving the car today.
02:37 Yeah, basically he does the racing, and I do the driving.
02:40 And so you have a racing partner, so there's two of you guys driving the car today.
02:43 Yeah, basically he does the paint and body, and I'm the mechanical guy.
02:46 I always bang up the body, and he always pops the motor.
02:49 Well, fair enough. You guys have to keep each other busy, right?
02:52 Yeah, exactly right.
02:53 What is it about coming to these sort of events that, you know, that makes it worthwhile?
02:59 Well, we've always been in the Cobra Club. That's why we put the Shelby body on it and everything.
03:02 So we've got a lot of friends. So you get to race amongst your friends.
03:05 When I was in high school, these were the cars that we all dreamed of owning.
03:08 So I would have been happy to get a ride in a GT350 or really anything, but I found the best thing possible.
03:14 Racing instructor and founder of the Bondurant Racing School, Bob Bondurant,
03:17 offered me the passenger seat in a replica of the number 72 GT40 that he raced in 1965.
03:23 We're going to go for a ride!
03:25 I'd had a chance to go out with the rest of the Hot Rod staff to Bob's school.
03:29 You might have seen that episode. But this was my first time seeing the man himself behind the wheel.
03:34 I'm in a GT40! Yeah, GT40. There you go.
03:39 With Bob Bondurant. Absolutely.
03:42 The GT40, besides being one of the most beautiful cars in existence, is also the car that won Le Mans for Ford,
03:54 showing the Ferrari team that the American teams were nothing to sneer at.
03:58 What's special about driving the GT40?
04:00 This car is fantastic. It handles well. It's a beautiful car to drive.
04:05 It puts out about 450 horsepower. Good torque, good acceleration, and good top-end speed also.
04:12 Well, thank you very much. You're very welcome.
04:14 I've been in lots of race cars before, but being in a GT40 with a driver who actually drove real ones,
04:19 with Ken Miles and Dan Gurney, it's not an experience that happens every day. It was totally incredible.
04:28 GT40s and Daytona coupes are what you'd expect to see at a Shelby event,
04:31 but SAC encourages all Ford-powered racers to participate.
04:34 So we came across a few cars that were really unusual, like a Trans Am-style Mercury Cougar.
04:39 Marty, you own a bunch of real Shelby cars, but this isn't one of them.
04:48 No, this is not. This is a Mercury Cougar '68. It was originally a street car.
04:53 It was a one-owner car in Modesto, California for about 35 years, and the owner is probably spinning in his grave
04:59 seeing what we did to it, but it's an awfully fun car to drive.
05:01 I heard that you made somebody else break the news to the owner that you had turned it into a race car.
05:06 I did. I did. So I think we're in good shape.
05:09 But, you know, I was always a Ford guy. My parents had a '67 Cougar when I was 10 years old,
05:14 so there's a lot of family history behind these cars.
05:16 What made you decide to build the Cougar for racing?
05:20 Well, as you can tell, there's an awful lot of white with blue stripe cars, and I own a couple of them,
05:25 but I wanted something different, and, you know, it stands out in a crowd.
05:29 I was also a huge fan of Dan Gurney growing up, and, you know, he drove some of the Budmore Cougars in the Trans Am series.
05:34 So it was really a homage to the Trans Am Cougars from '67.
05:39 Tell me a little bit about the specs on this car. What engines in it?
05:42 Did you do anything to the suspension? What's it like to drive?
05:45 Yes, so the engine's a 289, board 30 over, so legal for, you know, the Trans Am series, you know.
05:51 Jericho four-speed and, you know, fully adjustable suspension.
05:55 The car primarily races on the East Coast, so a lot of those modifications are legal there,
06:00 but would be not legal running in the historic Trans Am series on the West Coast.
06:05 Tell me about racing a vintage car and racing with other vintage cars. I mean, do you guys really go for it?
06:12 Yeah, no, we go for it.
06:13 It's fun to race with somebody as opposed to drive by yourself.
06:16 You really get to know and trust people when you're on a track.
06:19 It's a lot of fun, and the way I described it was, it's like being in high school, you know, when you're racing with somebody,
06:24 and you're in the high school parking lot, and you're screwing around, and the two of you are just laughing your ass off,
06:28 and then you look around, and the whole high school's screwing around in the parking lot.
06:32 That's like what a vintage race is, so it's like being back in high school.
06:35 Wouldn't be right to leave the SAC show without taking a look at one of the Concourse cars,
06:42 an original Shelby Cobra, and not just any Cobra.
06:45 This is the actual Essex Wire car, one of the winningest big block racing Cobras ever made.
06:49 This car was thought to be lost, but owner Andre Aurel tracked it down piece by piece,
06:54 and this is one of its very first public appearances.
06:56 Of all the big block competition Cobras, that's the most important one.
07:00 It won more races than any other Cobra.
07:03 It won the US Championship three times, and it vanished for more than 40 years.
07:07 And about six years ago, I got word that the chassis had surfaced somewhere, and I started digging into it.
07:14 The problem was the guy who had it before me had sold all the major parts to different collectors,
07:20 so they were all over the place.
07:22 The engine was in New Jersey, the gearbox we found with a collector in Pittsburgh,
07:26 so I spent months and months in the US just buying the stuff off collectors.
07:30 And it all got delivered four years ago to Mike McCluskey here in Torrance, California,
07:34 who was able to return the car to its former beauty.
07:37 That's a 427 full comp car. There's only about 19 still in the world existing.
07:42 There were a total of 23, of which two, I think, are in museums.
07:47 So it's a very rare car.
07:48 When we engaged in that project, Mike McCluskey and myself,
07:50 we decided to do it rather thorough and give it more time to find all the right parts, all the right pieces.
07:56 For example, the tires of that car we found with a collector in San Francisco.
08:00 These are the original rims from 1965-66 magnesium with the original tires.
08:05 We found an original set of new tires from 1966 the car is sitting on.
08:10 It's not drivable that way because the tires are just stone old and they would just blow up.
08:14 But just for display purposes, this is the correct tire the car raced with.
08:18 And actually the only competition Cobra on Firestone tires, while all the rest was on Goodyears.
08:23 So that's another unique little detail about this car.
08:25 There's no such thing as a bad car show.
08:27 But when you get to see vintage cars on the track, ride in a GT40 with a famous race car driver,
08:32 and be on hand for the debut of a newly restored one of one Cobra, well that's an extra good car show.
08:37 I've always been a Dodge girl, but I might have to think about getting a Ford.
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