The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

one of the rare times a GT350 took a financial hit of almost twenty-five per- cent of its value. Well bought, as they say on the auction circuit. Richmond kept the car in R-Model trim and vin- tage raced it at Lime Rock, Watkins Glen and Summit Point as well as par- ticipating in vintage races at SAAC conventions. By 1999 he determined the car was too valuable to put at risk on the track and put it up for sale. In October 1999 it was purchased by Dave Lennartz of Brush Prairie, Washington for $100K. For the next nine years Lennartz drove the car in local events and in SAAC open tracks when the convention visited the West Coast. The car was featured in several Mustang magazines during that time. Lennartz had never restored a car before and had no idea what was in- volved. A fellow Washington State SAAC member began tutoring him on the correct parts an early GT350 would require. Another Lennartz friend, Mark Hovander, began re- searching the early cars in an effort to help. He soon discovered that digging into the cars’ history was very enjoy- able. The more he learned, the more he realized there was to learn – and he was keen to discover as much as he could. When Hovander had been in eighth grade he fell in love with Cobras and began dreaming of owning one some day. He joined SAAC and became a penpal with Howard Pardee and Rick Kopec. They recognized his serious in- terest in the cars and took the time to answer his questions. One letter was followed by another and every answer prompted a dozen more questions. By the time he was 17 Hovander had ac- quired a Boss 302. A year later he had added a Cross Boss intake and Auto- lite in-line carburetor. He sold the car but repurchased it and still owns it today. Just before entering optometry school in 1984 Hovander sold every- thing he had in order to purchase a 289 Cobra, but fell $7,000 short. A year later he purchased 6S099. He put $10K he had left over towards his first year in optometry school, which he tells people was a bad investment – a Cobra would have been smarter. During this time he enthusiasti- cally immersed himself in early GT350 history. He owned 6S099 for thirteen years and sold it when the op- portunity to purchase a 1965 GT350 presented itself. He put his knowledge of the cars to good use, embarking on a long-term restoration of 5S284. His goal was to have the car finished for SAAC-32, at Miller Motorsports Park. After almost a decade of gathering parts and working to exacting specifi- cations, he was still putting the finish- ing touches on it the morning of the car show. On the way to the convention he took a side trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats where he met up with pro- fessional photographer Eric English to do some photography of the car. The result was a stunning study of the car on the salt at dusk. The soft lighting was perfect and one of the images was used on the cover of the Winter 2009 issue of The Shelby American . During his years of intensive study of 1965 GT350s Hovander grew to love the history of Shelby American and the early cars. He appreciated the cre- ativity of everyone at Shelby American who was involved with the cars. He talked to just about everyone who had anything to do with building them, from Peter Brock to Chuck Cantwell, Jerry Schwarz, Dick Lins, Jerry Nuznoff, Skeet Kerr and others. He started a website dedicated to 5S003 (www.1965gt350mustang.com ) which is as complete as anything you’ll find on the cars [ except, possibly, this arti- cle – ed. ]. Around 2008 Lennartz realized that the $100K he had paid for 003 was a lot of money to have sitting in the garage and decided to put the car up for sale so he could diversify his assets into other investments. The first per- son he offered it to was Hovander, be- cause of the hours he had put into researching the car’s history. Hovan- der had just completed a decade-long restoration of 5S284 with the inten- tion of keeping it for a long time. Then 003 was offered to him (for a lot more than Lennartz had paid for it) and his world was suddenly turned upside- down. He quickly found a buyer for 5S284 and remortgaged his house. Hovander had restored 5S284 to the way he would have ordered it had he been the original buyer in 1965. He kept the exterior stock and found a set of proper Kelsey-Hayes steel wheels. The engine was stock-appearing but internally it was a 347 stroker with specially-ground cam, modern rods and Hi-Po heads from Tasca Ford’s Trans-Am car ported by Valley Head Service. The intake was from a ‘66 GT350 because of its larger ports. The headers were custom-made in the original configuration but using larger diameter tubes for better breathing due to the ported heads. Peter Brock The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 33 For Hovander, 5S284 was the perfect GT350. It was all he ever wanted, until 5S003 came along. Then everything changed.