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« on: April 10, 2021, 07:56:45 PM »
When Shelby operations moved to Michigan in August, 1967 – they set up an engineering garage in Ionia, Michigan that had been a former car dealership. This smaller sized building was located a block to the East of AO Smith. There were maybe 15 employees that worked out of this facility including Chief engineer Fred Goodell, and painter Sonny Fee. There was also a Shelby office located in the Southfield / Livonia area just outside of Detroit. This was only an office and did not have any provisions for working on cars.
While in Ionia, the Shelby engineering garage was not fenced off or secure so if the cars were not being worked on inside the engineering facility, the other vehicles were either in the prototyping department at AO Smith or in the AO Smith lot, which was fenced off and guarded.
There is a Shelby Engineering Cars Inventory document that exists dated January 24, 1969. On this 2 page document are 14 vehicles with a simple inventory number assigned to it. Little Red was inventory number 67st103. The 1967 Shelby GT500 prototype was inventory number 67st102. 1967 GT 500 #100 is listed on the document as 67st109 and the gold 1968 GT500 number 101 conelec vehicle was assigned inventory number 68st203. Three of the vehicles mentioned above ended up getting sold through the dealer in Littleton, Colorado – so that helps explain how that could have occurred.
In those hand written notes questioned – that obviously did not happen and am thinking at that time Ford did not care what Carroll “wanted” to occur. The car he was probably envisioning was what ended up to be the Green Hornet – which was Inventory number 68st133 – painted by Sonny Fee and made in Ionia, not California.
As a side note to Eric’s comments - 67st102 – the 1967 Shelby GT500 prototype was also shipped to Ionia from California and sat in the Ionia engineering garage and was a 1968 fiberglass and fit test car for the duration of the 1968 year – so another 1967 car that received 1968 fiberglass. This was explained to me by Fred Goodell Jr about 20 years ago. (I still have the email) The car still wore that 1968 fiberglass while serving as a shop class car in an Ionia prison for over thirty years. 67st102 is not listed on this inventory document because it was donated to the prison on December 31, 1968. The car still has the dried label maker adhesive of 67st102 on its windshield today.