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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2015 245
Had not Jaguar received ad-
vanced FIA approval that their
recreations would be legal to race,
it is doubtful the project would
have gone any farther. By the way,
all six cars have been sold for $5M
each. Historic racing (called “vin-
tage racing” in the U.S.) has become
big business everywhere. Large
crowds mean large gates and rare
historic race cars attract large
crowds. However, when these rare
historic cars become too valuable to
race, owners stop bringing them
out. The other side of the equation
then comes into play: fewer cars
mean fewer spectators, which
means smaller gates. The goal of
race organizers is to insure that
events have a healthy number of
entries. This is why they no longer
place a premium on race history
and are hesitant to turn cars with-
out it away.
The FIA, once meticulously
strict in Europe, has bowed to the
business end of historic racing and
allows recreations, as long as cars
have “legitimate” serial numbers of
cars which were raced when they
were new. A number of Cobras
presently racing in Europe appear
to be based on Kirkham cars or
other reproductions and use serial
numbers appropriated from origi-
nal Cobras which were wrecked in
the 1960s or have otherwise “disap-
peared.” This allows the FIA to hold
its head up and maintain that they
only allow period cars to race while
turning a blind eye to recreations
with correct numbers but no actual
history. They have made an excep-
tion in allowing the newly recre-
ated Lightweight Es to compete.
Where will this trend go? Euro-
peans have only to look at the U.S.
Forty years ago when vintage rac-
ing in this country began (sired by
Steve Earle at Monterey’s Laguna
Seca) it was envisioned as a show-
There’s no question that when it
comes to cars, an association with Car-
roll Shelby is a virtual guarantee to in-
crease value. So we shouldn’t be
surprised when an owner concocts a
link out of whole cloth. If true, it would
certainly add to the uniqueness and
luster of the car. But if it’s not true
then it becomes a matter of determin-
ing if the car owner is a charlatan or
merely an unwitting dupe. Neither
choice is especially gratifying.
The latest in this parade of pin-
heads was spotted at a Cougar show
held at the Blackhawk Museum in
Danville, California back in late June.
A 1968 XR-7G (for Gurney) had a
showboard next to the car advising
anyone who saw it that the car was a
“Shelby Cougar.” Having recently pub-
lished the 1968-69-70 Shelby Registry,
we were somewhat surprised that
something so important could have
eluded our research. And yet, there it
was, in print.
“
In 1968 Mercury wanted some-
thing similar to the Shelby Mustang
and decided to enter into a contract
with famous race car driver and
Shelby Automotive founder, Carroll
Shelby. Shelby then entered into a con-
tract with A.O. Smith to do the actual
alterations to the cars. He was to send
regular production XR-7s built in
Dearborn, Michigan by rail to the A.O.
Smith factory in Ionia, Michigan
where they would be converted into
special XR-7G Cougars (also named
for Dan Gurney)
.”
We weren’t there, of course, but if
we had been, and if we could have
talked with the car’s owner, it would
have been interesting to hear his ex-
plantation of why Mercury would have
gone to Carroll Shelby in order to deal
with A.O. Smith, a subcontractor to-
tally independent of Shelby. And why,
in everything written about XR-7Gs to
date, was a Shelby connection never
mentioned? We’re guessing that all we
would have heard were crickets.
Moral of the story? Don’t believe
everything you see in print, even if it’s
on a professionally-done signboard.
Dennis Gage was at a car show at Morgan Park in Glen Cove, New York in late
June where he caught up with Keith Schadoff, SAAC’s A.O. Smith historian,
and his son Brandon. Check out Brandon’s smile: he knows that if he keeps his
nose clean for a few more years that red Shelby will be all his.
SHELBY COUGAR? YEAH, RIGHT.
‘68 SHELBY ON “MY CLASSIC CAR”