SAAC Forum

Car spotting addendum

Once again, spotting background cars can be as interesting as the main image imho.

In reply 181 photo, just to the right of the dude in the red jacket is a Mk 1 Cortina with a black trunk lid. Guess some custom paint accents were added.

Where were the '68 and later 302s built and where were the '82 and later 5.0l built?

QuoteYes.  While there were "Cheapness" qualities about the car, it was the right car for the time.  Massive shift in the auto industry for polution control coupled with a few oil embargo's and greatly increased fuel/oil costs.  When the II was new, Boss cars, Shelby's, 426 Hemi's were going for pennies because people couldn't afford to operate them.  The II was a great car seller at the time also.  It kept the Mustang name going and we are thankful that the Mustang name continues.  Most of it's rivals can't claim that.

Which has made all the difference. And don't overlook that in 1975 Ford added the 302 option. The Windsor 8.206-in deck made packaging a breeze. Unfortunately, the floor pan required a small diameter flywheel and trans bellhousing.

Attended the Mustang 50th Anniversary event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and located only one Mustang II. It was a Cobra and the owner had added dual quads. Car was very clean. Sad, but better than no Mustang IIs.

believe the article was written by brock yates

FWIW

reminds of the GT40 shots in the French film A Man and A Woman. The Man is a test driver and one of the cars he drives is a GT40. It was released in 1966. Don't know if this could be the same. Nevertheless the film has some of the best car-to-GT40 shots ever imho.

Ford France was a subsidiary before Ford of Europe was formed.

For the french language challenged, ecurie on the door is french for stable

How about defining perfection as doing what the car was designed to do: win races and ultimately a championship.

Visited the impressive Carroll Shelby Heritage Center in Las Vegas.

Needless to say, impressive, particularly the car building area.

One question occurred to me. They have a photo/caption collage of Shelby's early years. It mentions the amature races he won leading up to the 1959 Le Mans victory.

How might Shelby have been rated as a driver if he raced full time? Would he have been a Dan Gurney or Mario Andretti skill level? Had things turned out differently, would he have been successful in Trans-Am?

I don't think I've ever seen a comment regarding this aspect of his life.

QuoteWill SAAC follow suit and ban the Shelby Mach-E from open trace events?

Would be interesting to see what would happen if a Shelby Mach E GT was flogged around Streets of Willow course. Handling characteristics? Battery overheating?

Recently, Jim Losee, automotive enthusiast, passed away. Few outside of automotive publishing and the aftermarket will recognize his name. Never an owner, but Shelbys and Fords were often topics of conversation.

His life was cars and the people involved with them. How so? In the '70s he worked at Dayco, Harold Daigh's Long Beach boutique speed shop. Besides turning wrenches, he initiated The Factory Pipeline newsletter about GM performance parts. You may have seen his tech editor byline in Popular Hot Rodding and Car Craft. He worked at Edelbrock as a phone tech representative, media contact plus various tech assignments. At the start of the dot com boom, he was hired as a consultant for CarParts.com.

His first modified car was a Pinto fitted with a Lotus twin cam head. Over the decades, there was a 69 Hugger Orange Z/28, a Buick Regal T-Type, pickups, and 5.0 Mustangs. He built engines.

Meeting him, he was bigger than life combined with a huge smile and a ready handshake.

Enthusiasts -vehicle make is immaterial- and people who knew him have lost a car guy wrapped in a gentle soul. 

Not completely sure, but I have stayed in Holiday Inns.

Page layout is similar to Sports Car International formally published by Ross Periodicals.

It is with sadness to announce the passing of Smitty Smith, a 30 plus year Edelbrock employee. You may or may not recognize the name, but more than a few enthusiasts have spoken to him for Edelbrock product information.

His business card title was Technical Sales Coordinator. On the back he was listed as Technical & Application Information source. If you read their catalog, he was listed as one of the proofreaders. He also answered Edelbrock's tech line.

Smitty was well known to editors for information and arranging tech stories. And you can believe the former Hot Rod Tech Editor Marlan Davis had tech questions for him early and often.

More importantly, he was a fixture at Edelbrock's car show display. With his immaculately restored black '39 Ford pickup parked nearby, he was ready to talk cars and answer product questions. He always projected a cheerful, calm demeanor, reinforced with a smile. If he didn't know an answer, he got someone who did.  You may not have caught his name but there was no doubt  he knew what he was talking about. He will be missed.

QuoteAs woke as Ford has become I'm surprised they just didn't buy out the Formula E series.

If that occurred, I guess that would mean they would use a Mustang Mach E safety car.

File under its a small world after all (give or take a few decades):

I saw the Cobra when it was on display.

Purchase date of 2312 is my birthday. Who knew.

I have no information on the magazine.

However you might be interested in reading about the Intermeccanica Torino/Italia and Frank Reisner, the man behind it, in Automobile Quarterly Vol. IX No. 3 (Spring 1971). Not only that but he was involved with the one-off 1965 Mustang station wagon and John Fitch's Phoenix.

QuoteNot quite a list of FORD antendees, but...

I found a list of the FORD Board of directors in July 1965 with a photo

Good catch. It helps present a potential list of SA attendee suspects.

Plus an interesting source, the Walter P. Ruther Library. It illustrates looking around other tangential automotive collections because you never know what photo/scan/pr release/ newsletter that someone has archived. 

I still remain bemused that it seems, thus far, to appear that someone from Ford PR didn't cover the event showing Ford executives more closely since this was the Total Performance era that Ford was promoting full time.