The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

The asking price was $25K and it was freshly undercoated. It seemed like a lot of money without being able to in- spect all of the sheet metal.We passed. In 1997 Tony Conover was broker- ing 6S1916, a black-and-gold GT350H owned by Paul Zimmons. It was an all original car; the gold stripes were aged with crow's feet. It was a beautiful car but the funds were not there. At that time we were getting ready to start our own business. In 2006, in a fit of nostalgia, Hertz had Shelby American produce 500 Shelby GT Hs. All were black coupes with gold stripes. They were touted as the 40th Anniversary edition of the Hertz Shelby. In 2007, they produced 500 convertibles to make 1000 cars, just like 1966. We were at SAAC-31 at Virginia In- ternational Raceway when Car and Driver showed up with four new Hertz Shelbys. They staged a mock race with the cars. I fell in love with the car as soon as I saw it. The 2006 had the quarter window like the ‘66. After a year of Hertz duty, they were selling for more than a new GT Mustang. That extinguished my thoughts of get- ting one. Fast-forward to 2013. We are enjoy- ing ourselves at the Cars ‘N Coffee show at Tony Conover’s Performance Motors of Hanover in Hanover, Penn- sylvania. Our lifelong Shelby friends Roxanne and Mike Beaver pulled up in their newly acquired 2007 Shelby GT-H convertible. This rekindled the fire. I knew that a 1966 GT350H was out of my reach. I thought that if I could get a 2006 GT-H it would be my best chance of getting a Hertz Shelby. So the search began. Two weeks later we were attending the Northeast Shelby Event. My 26 year-old autistic son JR and I are walking through the parking lot at the motel and saw a 2006 Shelby GT-H. I told JR this is the car we are looking for. After breakfast we were walking back past the car. It belonged to Greg Kolasa, SAAC’s Hertz Registrar. I knew Kolasa and Carol Padden had a couple 66 GT350Hs. I mentioned to him I was looking to buy a 2006 GT-H and he said he had a friend in Brook- lyn, New York who had one for sale. By the end of the day I had a phone number. The next week I gave Phil Leone a call to make arrangements to look at the car on the weekend. Being a business person, his schedule was so full that I just took off a work day in the middle of the week. My wife and I took the truck and trailer and headed for New York. We got there and didn't even take the car for a test drive. We made a deal and loaded the car in the trailer on a small one way alley. We headed back to Maryland with our newly acquired 2006 Shelby GT H # 06H0087. It had 13,000 miles on the odometer. Hertz had logged 10,000 miles of rental duty. For a little history, the car was shipped from Shelby American in Las Vegas to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. From there it went back to Las Vegas for Hertz duty at McCarran airport. The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 64