1969 Shelby Mustang with Holman Moody 427

[DBinSC]

Hello, new member here:

I'm looking for anyone familiar with this old thread in the Shelby Forum.  I tried joining the Shelby Forum but the eCaptcha never loads under 3 different browsers so trying this forum.  I'm 90% positive I have located this car:

About three decades plus ago our searches for Shelby cars (Cobras, GT350s, GT500s, Cobra 427s) led us to a strange car a doctor in Hartselle Alabama owned. He called a 427 Shelby but it was strange in lots of ways. We thought we were chasing a Cobra 427. I don't recall everything but I believe it was a 1969 Mustang chassis with fiberglass front and rear Shelby style pieces, but I don't think the hood had holes in the vent features. There was a 427 tunnel port engine installed in the car and lots of unShelby like details all over the car inside and out. The only VIN we could find started off HMxxxx something so we decided we weren't interested. The doctor claimed, to the best of memory, the car was assembled at Holman-Moody as a racer but got converted to street. I saw the car on and off at local shows for maybe ten years and then it must have left the area.

Any info. would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Bill]

Made up VIN, could have been an after the fact conversion with the drivetrain, but the story is a figment of someone's imagination

[98SVT - was 06GT]

HM was Ford's skunk works. However I doubt this is a car they built. The Shelby was dead so Ford would not try to have another iteration built. The Mustang factory race cars HM built were Boss 302 for TransAm (those are all accounted for) Cobra Jet 428s (I haven't followed these but to be "stock" for NHRA they would have had normal VINs) for drag racing along with some engines for the Funny Cars. Those cars were actually done in Long Beach while it was HM-Stroppe (Bill Stroppe was a Ford west coast contractor. They did auto testing and storage/maint of the press fleet. They were Mercury's factory stock car team and built the racing Broncos and African Comets). The AFX Mustangs were also converted to the first of the long wheelbase funnycars in Stroppes shops while partnered with HM.
HM is said to have pretty good records. If you had the whole number you might be able to check their files. I suspect it's someone's dream and creation. An internet search doesn't show the car and such a rare 1 off would have certainly generated a lot of interest/comments in the last 50 years.

A 428 HM car - https://www.gaaclassiccars.com/vehicles/37685/1969-ford-mustang-cobra-jet

ADDED NOTE ON TA CARS: MY BAD - it was Bud Moore Engineering that built the factory 69-70 Mustang TA cars. Those TA cars all had regular Mustang VIN numbers. Ford did supply BM with 4 un-serialized bodies in white for the 71 TA season. 3 were built by BM for TA (2 were raced the other was sold as new and went into IMSA)  and the last sold and finished years later. BM DID NOT assign/stamp any numbers for these cars. I the last 10-20 years they have been known as 11971,21971.... or BIW1, BIW2 on other web sites. Shelby since mid 67 had been a Ford race team contractor. The SA assigned Boss 302 TA cars were returned to BM when the SA contract expired.  http://www.ponysite.de/transam.htm

[FL SAAC]

Very interesting

[crossboss]

Hello, new member here:

I'm looking for anyone familiar with this old thread in the Shelby Forum.  I tried joining the Shelby Forum but the eCaptcha never loads under 3 different browsers so trying this forum.  I'm 90% positive I have located this car:

About three decades plus ago our searches for Shelby cars (Cobras, GT350s, GT500s, Cobra 427s) led us to a strange car a doctor in Hartselle Alabama owned. He called a 427 Shelby but it was strange in lots of ways. We thought we were chasing a Cobra 427. I don't recall everything but I believe it was a 1969 Mustang chassis with fiberglass front and rear Shelby style pieces, but I don't think the hood had holes in the vent features. There was a 427 tunnel port engine installed in the car and lots of unShelby like details all over the car inside and out. The only VIN we could find started off HMxxxx something so we decided we weren't interested. The doctor claimed, to the best of memory, the car was assembled at Holman-Moody as a racer but got converted to street. I saw the car on and off at local shows for maybe ten years and then it must have left the area.

Any info. would be appreciated.

Thank you.

I believe you are referring to 'The Quarter Horse' cars. The name means 1/4 Shelby, 1/4 Cougar, and 1/4 Boss. I think there were two (possibly 3 or 4) made up.

[Bob Gaines]

Hello, new member here:

I'm looking for anyone familiar with this old thread in the Shelby Forum.  I tried joining the Shelby Forum but the eCaptcha never loads under 3 different browsers so trying this forum.  I'm 90% positive I have located this car:

About three decades plus ago our searches for Shelby cars (Cobras, GT350s, GT500s, Cobra 427s) led us to a strange car a doctor in Hartselle Alabama owned. He called a 427 Shelby but it was strange in lots of ways. We thought we were chasing a Cobra 427. I don't recall everything but I believe it was a 1969 Mustang chassis with fiberglass front and rear Shelby style pieces, but I don't think the hood had holes in the vent features. There was a 427 tunnel port engine installed in the car and lots of unShelby like details all over the car inside and out. The only VIN we could find started off HMxxxx something so we decided we weren't interested. The doctor claimed, to the best of memory, the car was assembled at Holman-Moody as a racer but got converted to street. I saw the car on and off at local shows for maybe ten years and then it must have left the area.

Any info. would be appreciated.

Thank you.

I believe you are referring to 'The Quarter Horse' cars. The name means 1/4 Shelby, 1/4 Cougar, and 1/4 Boss. I think there were two (possibly 3 or 4) made up.

2 Quarter horse cars were built at Kar Kraft . They had 429 based engines not 427.  They did however have Shelby based hoods with closed off scoops.

[Dan Case]

I remember meeting the owner in Hartselle and crawling all over the car. The car and story attached to it were fairly well known in northern Alabama. When it was offered for sale decades ago we went and checked the car out. It was crude at the time with many parts of all kinds missing. From memory, workmanship was not all that great. It had been modified with some but not all "Shelby style" pieces and parts. As far as the HM identification, it seemed very questionable.

The car was located by quite a few people over several years and has been discussed in public nearly five decades.

[Special Ed]

Both quarterhorses still exist red blue and the name came from john harp third man hired at fords KK plant and when  they were building them they were trying to come up with a name and he was living at his dads quarter horse farm then so he suggested calling them quarterhorses so thats where the name came from and he took one of them on a test drive when new to break it in over a weekend trip to iowa to visit his brother but had to have the car back on monday that is the story he told me back years ago.

[tesgt350]

There was an article a couple Decades ago in Mustang Times on Holman Moody and they did build a few specialty Cars and they even put their own Numbered Tags on the Cars.  It was also reported that HM put their Tags on just about everything back in the 60's & early 70's.