The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

car. But as nice as it was, the lily could be gilded and that’s what Smith de- cided to do. The goal was to make the car the finest Shelby in the world, bar none. As the first Shelby, if any car de- served to receive this sort of attention, this was clearly the one. Smith had Charles Turner visit his shop in early February to take de- tailed photos, inventory all the parts and review the voluminous documen- tation that Hovander had provided with the car. A month later the car went to Turner’s shop in Apex, North Carolina. Smith had decided that Turner would oversee the restoration. Turner had the car in his shop for two months, during which time he and Smith discussed the direction the restoration would take. At first they tried to justify leaving the paint alone, but eventually decided the only way to get the car the way they wanted would require stripping it to bare metal be- fore repainting it. In June, 2019, Turner sent Smith an email suggesting that he might want to consider reconfiguring the car as the original knockdown Mustang as it came from the San Jose assembly line and was delivered to Shelby American in Venice in late 1964. It could be displayed with all of the GT350 parts that would eventually go on the car (which they had or had ac- cumulated). It was an interesting con- cept and something that had never been done before. Smith agreed to think about it. But it was more impor- tant to have the car built to it’s Day- One GT350 configuration. They planned to have the car finished in time for the SAAC convention, the MCA Grand National, the Mid Amer- ica Ford and Shelby show in Tulsa in the summer of 2019 and then the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN) in Chicago in November. Jason Billups in Colcord, Oklahoma agreed to do the bodywork and paint. As a donor car, an early Mustang coupe was found by Turner out in Cal- ifornia and Jeff Speegle inspected it, boxed it up and shipped to Turner in North Carolina. The car was built only twelve days before 003, so the date codes on all the parts were very close. It provided period-correct parts in- cluding some of the front end bolt-on pieces as well as various fasteners and pieces of hardware. While 5S003 was in Billups’ shop everyone realized that the SAAC, MCA and Tulsa dates were overly op- timistic. But the MCACN was defi- nitely doable. However, there wasn’t time to complete the build to GT350 specifications. So it was decided to complete the car as the knockdown unit that was delivered to Shelby American. They briefly flirted with the thought of displaying the car with all of the GT350 unique parts but lacked sufficient time to prepare them. Also, they did not want to take the chance of having any of these irreplaceable prototype parts “disappear” during the show. The donor car arrived with the painted shell in a double car hauler. Turner spent the first two weeks dis- assembling the coupe, sorting and cleaning parts and sending items out for refinishing (like the control arms, fasteners and miscellaneous parts that needed to be zinc or cadmium electro-plated). Turner took 003 from bare painted shell to completely as- sembled car in less than two months. Quite a feat. Following the show the car would be converted to a GT350 like it originally was, and displayed again at the MCACN a year later. Two of the really difficult items Turner encountered were the front seat covers. They were reproductions and he located a set of NOS/assembly plant leftover seat covers which needed a little repair. He turned to local upholstery expert Lennie Gard- ner. When Turner was attending North Carolina State University in 1990 he was looking to do something part-time that involved cars. Gardner owned Auto Interiors and Tops in Raleigh, and had a side business sell- ing used cars called Auto Classics, spe- cializing in first generation Mustangs. The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 40