The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2015 251
5S480 : THE BONEYARD BLUES – NOT EVERY SHELBY GETS RESCUED
A long time ago we received a let-
ter from Jim Nardone, a ‘68 Shelby
owner from San Antonio, Texas. It was
about a ‘65 GT350 he had come across
in an Arizona boneyard. He enclosed a
few photos he took at the time. We
thought it would make an interesting
story in
The Shelby American
and we
set everything aside. Then we lost
track of it. We knew it was around
here somewhere but it wasn’t until the
other day that we found it. Although
it’s aged a bit, the account is neverthe-
less interesting.
ine is a sad story, today, but I feel
the responsibility as a Shelby owner to
pass it along. I was on active duty in
the Air Force at the time, a young buck
back then (unlike the way I would cur-
rently characterize myself). I was sta-
tioned in Plattsburg, New York, near
Lake Champlain, about twenty miles
from the Canadian border. I had met
and married my wife on a previous as-
signment in Tucson, Arizona and we
visited her family there every chance
we got. I loved the desert, especially
seeing the multitude of rust-free, vin-
tage cars that wheeled down the sun-
drenched roads. Being a transplant
from the Northeast rustbelt, I was in
automotive heaven. I had already pur-
chased two 1966 Mustang 2+2s in Ari-
zona and sold them years later when I
bought my 1968 Shelby GT500—
which also came from the Tucson area.
During one trip back to Tucson,
still drooling over all of the wonderful,
timeless vintage cars on the road, I
went junkyard-hopping. I did this
every chance I got when I was back
there. Scanning the isles I found my
feet shuffling quicker in mounting an-
ticipation of what might be around the
next corner.
This particular day as I rounded a
line of derelicts I spotted a gray-
primered 1965 or 1966 Mustang fast-
back. My pulse began to quicken. The
front sheetmetal and doors were gone
and there was a gaping hole in the
firewall that extended along much of
the transmission hump. “
This poor
car...
” I thought to myself.
I started to look at it more closely.
It had rear brake cooling ducts at-
tached to the rear wheel houses. Then
I saw a bracket for an over-ride trac-
tion bar welded to the floor pan. Wait,
there was one on each side. For a mo-
ment I wondered, “
Can it be? Naw, no
way...
” I walked around to the rear of
the car and looked into the trunk.
There were battery cables where a
battery had once been mounted.
I slowly moved around this bat-
tered carcass, its front end looking like
a buzzard-picked skeleton in the
desert. I noticed the modified shock
towers which likely made room for a
big block. The upper A-arms had been
lowered. There were just too many co-
incidences for this car not to be a
Shelby.
I examined the inner fender pan-
els very closely and found the Ford
VIN. It was a ‘65, from San Jose, with
a K-code. Then I found the Shelby
number stamped into the passenger
side. It was like the clouds parting.
This was a genuine 1965 GT350. The
serial number was SFM5S480. My
heart began to race and I was ecstatic!
I took a lot of pictures of the car and
found a pencil and a scrap of paper in
another car and made pencil-tracings
of the Shelby and Ford serial numbers.
I was sure that nobody would believe
I had found a real 1965 GT350 with-
out some kind of “proof.”
I couldn’t wait to approach the
junkyard’s manager, in his office out
front. I told myself to be calm and not
let on that it was a Shelby. I rehearsed
what I would say as I walked out, and
envisioned returning with a truck and
trailer to haul my treasure home.
I calmly inquired about purchas-
ing the car. He asked me what parts I
needed. I responded that I wanted to
buy the whole car as it sat. He said he
did not sell whole cars, just parts. I
quickly made up a story about having
an old, badly-rusted Mustang fastback
back home and needed the whole
thing, intact, to restore it. I asked him
how much cash I’d have to give him to
take possession of the car. After a long
pause, he said, “
$150
.” I could hardly
believe my ears. Only $150 for a very
rough but genuine 1965 GT350. I
asked him about the title. He said I
wouldn’t be getting a title and
wouldn’t get the car in one piece. He
would cut it up into three or four
pieces before it left his yard.
I told him that I didn’t want it in
pieces; I’d take it whole, the way it
was. If he cut it up I would just have
to put it back together again. The more
I pressed him, the more adamant he
became. The only way that car was
leaving there was in pieces. At one
point in our conversation he told me
that it was not a Shelby. I said, “
Of
course not.”
He finally admitted that
he was concerned about liability; if he
sold the car and it was repaired, and
then ended up in an accident he did
not want to be liable.
M