The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

Sports Car Club and the Sports Car Club of America. They each staked out their races and tracks for weekend events. Lew Spencer was a smart op- erator and he was able to swing back and forth between the competing groups. Not everyone did. The result was a busy racing schedule which in- cluded the first races at the historic Paramount Ranch in August 1956 where he piloted an early version of his five Morgans (each named Baby Doll, successively I to V) to a 6th OA in the preliminary race and 12th OA, 2nd Class E in the over-1500cc final against such names as Billy Krause, 4th OA in a D-Type Jag; Richie Ginther, 3rd OA in a Porsche 550 Spy- der; Eric Hauser, 2nd OA in the Mor- genson Special RDX which would soon become Max Balchowsky’s first “Ol Yeller” and Harrison Evans, the win- ner that day in a Ferrari 550 Monza. Interestingly, Ken Miles is credited as one of the designers of the Paramount Ranch track. A 23 year-old entrant named Robert Bondurant, in his first year of racing, was a DNF in a Morgan TR2. By 1957 Lew Spencer was selling cars for Rene Pellandini at his World- wide Automotive Imports dealership in Los Angeles, and racing a Morgan Plus 4 for the company on the week- ends. Pellandini added the West Coast distributorship for AC Cars in 1958 and ordered a factory prepared Ace for his home shoe, Lew Spencer. When that didn’t arrive in a timely manner they went out and bought a 1957 Ace with 56,000 miles on the odo from a re- turning service man and prepped it themselves. The car was good – good enough for Spencer to win three SCCA Pacific Coast Championships. When Pellandini decided to return to his na- tive Switzerland in 1960 he sold his two distributorships to Lew Spencer, but he couldn’t afford multiple mar- ques. His first love was the Morgan and AC Cars was in trouble, having lost its engine supplier. So Lew Spencer Imports was established as the west coast Morgan distributor and Los Angeles based Morgan dealer. At Sebring in March 1960, Spencer had picked up a ride for British Motor Cars in an Austin-Healey 3000 which he and Gilbert Geitner respectably brought home 15th OA, 2nd GT 3.0. In the fall of 1961 Carroll Shelby was trying to find the path to his dream – a lightweight imported chas- sis with American V8 power. No one has ever suggested Shelby was a great businessman, but he was not a dummy either. Sometime in the fall of 1961 Shelby invited Spencer to lunch. The purpose was due diligence on the quote Shelby had from AC Cars as to the landed cost in the U.S. of an AC rolling chassis, minus the engine and transmission. During the lunch Shelby described his project and, while Spencer was skeptical to say the least, he helped Shelby understand what it should cost and went on his way back to his Morgan business and weekend sports car racing. At this point in his career in 1961, Spencer was racing a Devin bodied 327 cubic-inch Corvette with limited success, but he was get- ting a “bigger” block education in the process, at larger races. March 1962 found Spencer paired with Ken Miles at Sebring in a Sunbeam Alpine, one of four entries for Rootes Motors. Even though they were a DNF, Lew Spencer’s love affair with Sebring was cemented. Shelby did pull his dream together in 1962 and one of the first guys he called to test his new car was Lew Spencer. The car was going to be shown to the press at Riverside and Shel asked Lew to come out early and take it for a couple of laps. Spencer re- called later how nervous Shelby was because he had only the one car at the track and had anything happened to that car it would have been a disaster. After a couple of careful hot laps Lew climbed out of the car thinking it had a lot of potential. Potential indeed! By early 1963 Shelby American had hired Dave Mac- Donald and Ken Miles as factory driv- ers, who were supported by contract drivers at the larger races. One of those part time guys was Lew Spencer who was paired with Ken Miles and Phil Hill in CSX2127 at Sebring in March 1963. They brought the car home 11th OA, 1st GT 4.0. Lew went on to do well for Shelby American at Road America in September with Bob Johnson in CSX2137 (6th OA, 2nd GT) and in October 1963 in the 1 Hour race at Riverside that preceded the 200- mile Los Angeles Grand Prix. The pre- liminary race became famous for Allen Grant gridding his independent Coventry Motors Cobra (CSX2128) 4th behind the Shelby American factory Team, comprised that day of Bob Bon- durant in CSX2137, Lew Spencer in CSX2136, and Dan Gurney in CSX2127. When the green flag dropped Grant got a hole shot on Bon- durant and Spencer and charged into the first turn, thereby barging into the Shelby American happy parade. At turn six (dare we say an angry) Bon- durant shunted the upstart off the track leaving Grant at the back of the field. Over the next hour Grant pro- ceeded to work his way back through the field to finish 2nd OA behind Bondo. Lew Spencer was 3rd OA, just ahead of Dan Gurney. The whole affair was captured on 35mm movie film by Universal Studios and used in the movie “The Killers.” That’s Lew Spencer in the No. 98 car. A few weeks later Grant was given a team ride. Ian Garrad was the LA based West Coast rep for Rootes Motors and he was keeping a keen eye on the local racing scene. By the early spring of 1963 the success of Shelby American’s Cobra was obvious, and Garrad got to thinking about a small block American V8 in the Sunbeam Alpine, which at the time was making 80 bhp out of a 97 cubic-inch engine. He wanted to build a test car, so he went to Ken Miles at his shop in Hollywood. Miles had raced Alpines for Rootes Motors over the prior couple of years. He got the engine swap and paint job done quickly for $1,200 and he and Ian Gar- rad took the car out on the Golden State Freeway late one Sunday night. Garrad was terrified but Miles knew they had a car that would sell. It took some months, but by late 1963 Garrad was given a $10,000 budget plus two cars out of Rootes Mo- tors and Shelby American was awarded the work on the “official” pro- totypes. Being already stretched thin, The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 51