The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

drawn to the Indianapolis 500 and Dave MacDonald was no exception. Ever the innovator, Mickey Thompson had developed three low-slung aero- jobs for the big race, designed around 12” wheels, but when the race stew- ards mandated 15” wheels, Thompson and his drivers found themselves chasing a fix for cars that had become undrivable. Too much air was going under them. Graham Hill walked away after two laps in March 1964. Masten Gregory walked away after a crash in mid-May. Jim Clark went to MacDonald after following him in practice and suggested he get out of the car. But as a gentleman of his word, and a man chasing a dream, Dave MacDonald stuck it out in hopes the car would be right by race day. MacDonald died in a fiery crash on the second lap of the 1964 Indianapolis 500. He was 27 years old. In his 52- month racing career he had entered 118 sports car races, with 75 top three finishes, including 52 outright wins. Dave MacDonald was the principal ar- chitect of the Cobra racing legend. A British national with a shade tree mechanical engineering background, Ken Miles arguably contributed as much to the Shelby American story as any other man in the organization with the complimentary exception of Phil Remington. In short, Ken Miles was one of the best-ever development drivers, probably as result of his hav- ing designed and modified his own race cars on a shoestring for so many years. Born in 1918, he spent seven years in the British Army as a me- chanic in a tank regiment that landed at Normandy in 1944. Before the war he raced motorcycles and after the war he cut his teeth with the Vintage Sports Car Club in England (a club for “not so rich” vintage racers). Miles em- igrated to the U.S. in 1952 and settled into the automotive scene in Los An- geles as the service manager for the SoCal MG distributor. He immediately went racing in an MG that he heavily modified and the race wins came apace. In 1953 he racked up 14 straight SCCA class wins, including nine overall victories. Over the suc- ceeding years he progressed to ever more sophisticated rides as a pro driver, in Mercedes, Ferraris, Maser- atis and Porsches. His first appear- ance on the east coast was at the Sebring 12-Hours in March 1959 in a Porsche 718 RSK where he finished 8th OA and 3rd in class. In the mean- time, he had set up his own foreign car repair shop in Hollywood and had begun to race a Sunbeam Alpine for the Rootes Group. The SoCal Rootes Group represen- tative hatched the idea of putting a Cobra engine in an Alpine and when Shelby was too busy to take on the project it ended up over at Ken Miles Unlimited in North Hollywood. Unfor- tunately for Miles, paying taxes were low on his priority list and when his The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 44 Dave MacDonald Ken Miles Ken Miles