SAAC Forum

Before becoming enthralled by Bob's mastery of racing, let's not forget that, at last count, he put EVERY ONE of his race cars on its roof at Lime Rock...and lived to tell the story of each event (of course, he DID end up an inch shorter after the last escapade)!

Bob was never a "fancy" guy and you didn't need "fancy" words to describe him: he was simply a good guy and will be missed.

You can't remember Bob without a couple of short stories:

Bob's nickname of "The Animal" had nothing to do with an evil personality. In fact, quite the opposite. It stems from his desire at one of the Shelby Club's open track events to "bring his per-lap cost below that of the Malibu Grand Prix cars from the last convention". And he did. While most convention goers drove their vintage Shelby Mustangs for 10 or so laps at Pocono Speedway, Bob put better than 80 on his '66 GT350H. That's not 80 MILES...that's 80 LAPS!

Those old convention open track events allowed a passenger to be strapped into the right seat while the driver circulated the track at speeds not much lower than Richard Petty. I remember a ride with Bob at Charlotte in like around 1985. Can you say "hang on for dear life"? As we screamed down the back straight a mere inched from a very hard retaining wall (which routed the exhaust directly into my ears), there was an ever-so-slight (practically imperceptible) change in the exhaust note. Instantly, Bob aimed for the pits, screeching to a halt, as we both exited the vehicle. I pilled the hood retaining pin on my side, Bob did so on his and together, we lifted the hood. Instantly, my face turned to sheer terror while Bobs showed an ear-to-ear grin. The bottom of the hood was literally dripping with oil as Bob reached down, pushed a plug wire onto a spark plug, and we slammed the hood shut. Hopping back in, we were already rolling as I hastily buckled up and hung on for the rest of the session. After it was all over, I asked Bob about all that oil. His response? "It always does that". His cars were never show queens, but boy, did they RUN!

Greg and Carol

Steve McD (perhaps unwittingly) highlights the difficulty in determining the top stripes issue as it pertains to the Hertz cars: cost. The contract between SAI and Hertz called for top stripes to be added at no cost (as a side note, it is interesting that Hertz actually got a better deal on the cars than did Shelby's own dealers, who had to pay for top stripes) so on the cars where Hertz specified no stripes, there was no reason to give any sort of credit...the stripes were free anyway. There is no way SAI was going to refund the cost of something they essentially had to give away for free! Since the stripes were a 'no cost' item, they didn't show up on the Hertz car invoices...that's why we are forced into using the Staff Meeting Minutes to address the issue of stripe application. The Minutes address the issue of striping/no striping during a block of time, which is a bit less desirable than if the invoices noted stripes, which would address the issue on a car-by-car basis. As for factory documentation on this topic, we gotta work with what we have.

I believe that one reader commented that 522 was a red, four-speed car...a look at the Hertz car listing in the Registry clearly identifies the car as black. NONE of the original four-speed cars were other than black.

Hi Dennis,
Short answer: no.

More detailed answer: although it wouldn't seem so, an exact total of most of the colors is, for the time being, impossible. That's because where the color of a certain batch of cars changes into the next-colored batch, often we don't know exactly where the changeover occurred (by serial number). So there are some cars where we don't know whether they belong to one color group or the other. Each of the red, green batches, for example, didn't number exactly 50 cars, either. I think the number was closer to 54-ish or so for the red ones, 57-ish for the green ones. The white cars total closer to 65-ish because, as you ask, there was the early batch of white cars (some with blue stripes) and then a (close to) 50 car batch later on. This is just one of those areas where we historians will hafta learn that we can't have exact answers! At least until more paperwork turns up.

For a complete telling of the '66 Hertz story, I would urge anyone interested to read the appropriate chapter in the 2011 '65-'66'67 Registry. But I can offer a definitive explanation of just the red cars here. One must remember that despite the fact that Shelby American pitched the program to Hertz as 1000 black and gold cars, when Hertz finally awarded a contract to Shelby in December of 1965, it was for 1000 cars equally divided in all five of the colors in which the '66 GT350-black, red, white, blue and green. By then, Hertz had already changed their minds several times as to the color mix and the transmission types. Even after the contract had been finalized, Hertz continued, almost on a weekly basis, to change the requirements, and these changes have all been captured in Shelby American's Staff Meeting Minutes.

Another factor must be understood to being the red cars question into focus was the means by which San Jose shipped cars to Shelby American for conversion into GT350s: they would run a batch of one color, ship Shelby's allotment of that color, run another color, ship Shelby's allotment of THAT color...and so on. The result was that Shelby received cars for GT350 conversion (for both Hertz and non-Hertz) in batches of like-colored cars. What happened in the case of the red Hertz cars was that two unrelated events occurred simultaneously: first, Hertz again flip-flopped on the subject of top stripes (please don't call them "LeMans stripes", Shelby American referred to them as "rally stripes" back in the day) and requested that rally stripes NOT be applied. Then, very shortly thereafter, Shelby American received a batch of red cars and began converting them into GT350Hs. Just as the red group as completed, guess what? Hertz again changed their mind and decided that all cars thereafter would have rally stripes. Thus, factory paperwork proves pretty conclusively that NONE of the red GT350Hs had top stripes. Hertz didn't make a conscious decision to have their red cars lacking top stripes; it just turned out that way. Sometime afterwards, Hertz again flip-flopped and decided that the remainder of their fleet would be black with gold stripes, so the 50 or so red GT350Hs without top stripes were the only ones there would ever be.

I hope this clarifies this subject for the 99% percent...

Greg

There is some discussion on the Alan Mann GT40s and on that subject, some caution should be exercised as there are two very different "Alan Mann Lightweight" GT40s. The first two are AM GT40/1 and /2, which were built around lightweight Abbey Panels chassis. These cars had slightly narrowed roof sections (not as narrow as the Mirage cars) and all-aluminum bodies; small-block engines provided the power. They debuted at Sebring in 1966 where neither finished although while they were running, they were fast. Next stop was at the LeMans Trials in April where, again, the cars were fast but didn't last. Being concerned that the cars wouldn't survive 24 hours (or worse still, they outlast and outperform the Ford factory MKIIs), Ford instructed Mr. Mann that if he should wish to enjoy the benefits of Ford support, he would do so with 427 MKII cars. The AM cars were sold off (one going to Paul Hawkins to eventually become among the winningest GT40s ever).

Alan Mann had three essentially standard MKI chassis built up (recall that MKIIs were modified from MKI chassis received from Abbey Panels) but with lightweight roof sections; dimensionally, the cars were identical to the Shelby/Holman-Moody MKIIs. These cars were designated XGT-1, -2 and -3 and were being built into MKII racers by Shelby American at the airport, along with the cars that they (Shelby) and H-M would race; Mann and H-M personnel joined the Shelby crews to assist in the construction.  In late May (I believe), it was decided to stop work on XGT-3 to save on critical manpower, parts and time expenditures. GT40 P/1012, which was run by Mann at Spa and which was still in Europe would be designated as the spare car for the Ford LeMans effort. XGT-3 was not completed until AFTER LeMans and as a show car for the MKII Tour following Ford's victory. Initially, it was completed as a near carbon-copy of the winning P/1046 but later repainted red. Neither of the XGT cars (XGT-1 and XGT-2) entered by Mann at LeMans finished (LeMans was their only race), and it is the yellow #8 XGT-1 that currently resides in the Simeone Museum.

There are some nice period pictures of both types of Alan Mann GT40s (taken by Chuck Cantwell and Ron Sampson) in my "Through Their Own Eyes" article, which is in the 2017 SAAC Annual and my article on XGT-3, the "Never Raced Racer" appears in the latest  Annual. And, of course, for those who'd like to further overdose on Alan Mann GT40 information, there's always the Cobra/GT40 Registry.

I hope this clarifies things...

Greg

Space is gone! Thanks!

Had several questions asked about this: There are NO garages for rent at SAAC 44. There ARE 20' x 40' tents that will accommodate up to four cars for private covered parking for the entire convention.  These tents are available from SAAC for $600. Buddy-up with some other people if you don't need 4 spaces (speaking of such, I have one space available for rent in my tent for $150). Please PM if interested.

According to Chuck Cantwell, copies of our GT350 book will be available for sale at SAAC-44 but if anyone purchased a copy elsewhere and would like Chuck and I to sign it, don't forget to bring it along as we'll be happy to do so.


Greg

1 Space Left!

We have space for 2 more cars in our SAAC 44 Tent Rental. Price is $150.00 per car. Please PM if interested.