The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

f Lord Tennyson were alive today, he would probably have said, “ Tis better to have loved and sold a Shelby than never to have owned one at all. ” The former owner of a GT350 convertible, Harley Strang, would certainly agree. Harley, who just turned 90 but dresses and looks like he’s a young 70 and probably drives like he’s 18, pur- chased this stunning 1968 GT-350 Candy Apple red convertible, #01829, back in June 1978. With 42,000 miles on the odometer, he wrote the check for $5,000. Twenty-one years and 12,000 miles later, in January of 2000 he sold his ‘love’ to Chris Hoverman for $33,000. None of his kids yearned for the Shelby so he used the proceeds to set up college funds for his oldest son’s two boys. One is now a mechani- cal engineering student at Texas A&M, my alma mater. Strang was a long-time banker here in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the second largest city in the state, nestled in the beautiful, hilly region known as the Ozarks. After a stressful day at work, Harley would put the Shelby top down, loosen his tie and ease onto the highway nearby, while keeping an eye out for any police cars. If all was clear, he would hammer the throttle and cruise at 100 mph for the short ride home. Once in his driveway the stress would be long gone, replaced with a wide grin. You might keep this in mind as another reason why you need to own that next Shelby ‘driver.’ Strang kept his automatic trans- mission convertible in immaculate condition, appearance-wise as well as mechanically. He had the car re- painted and the carpet and convertible top replaced. It looked great and ran like a Shelby should. So, it was no sur- prise that a good friend of his that owned an auto parts store asked to use the rare red roadster in an advertising flyer. I’d say the idea was a success – it surely caught your eye. Harley Strang also owned a used car lot, B&S Auto Sales, for a number of years, and bought and sold numer- ous nice Mustangs. “ We’d buy ‘em, clean them up and sell them. Occa- sionally I’d keep one for a year or two .” When asked if he ever had a K code Mustang on the lot, he laughed. “ Early on, we had a clean, low mileage 1965 red convertible that we sold at a regu- lar price. Afterwards, we learned that it was a K code – equipped with a high The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 78 — Jim Kruez I