What It's Like To Sit in $2 Million

"Jay Lauer" (thefaultinourcars) 12/11/2013 at 11:10 • Filed to: None

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It's great.

I should give an introduction, I suppose. This is a 1965 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350-R. Roughly 35-36 of these were made and were designed as purpose-built race cars.

What makes this particular Shelby so special and valuable is that it's Gt350 #3, the first one sold to the public.

The car was first sold to a race team that ran the car, and ran it hard, through the circuit for the first years. During that time it was painted blue with yellow stripes, for that teams' racing colors.

The owner's story began one evening in 1974 when he first saw his R Model in a garage at an east Wichita home. It sat on jack stands, and he had to pull it home with a tow chain. He was told that it belonged to a young man who was going off to college. At the time, the $3,000 that Hilbert paid was "high-dollar," he says. The original bill of sale says it cost just over $6,000 new.

After getting the car back on it's legs, he then raced it unprofessionally for many years. It wasn't until the dawn of Windows95 that a man walked up to the owner and exclaimed a strange set of words, " Do you know what that's worth. "

Well, the owner didn't. And after 6 hours and one Google search later, he quit racing the car competitively. Smart move.

Now here's where the story gets interesting. One of the pictures is labeled 1984 Texas Challenge Vintage Race. Behind is the owner is his GT350R and up front is Carroll Shelby himself in an AC Cobra. At Hallett Motor Speedway, the two were racing, ball-to-the-wall of course, coming down the final straight against a number of 911s and a couple of Stratos recreations.

Coming down the final straight with the tach pegged at 8k RPM, the aluminum flywheel fitting to GT350R's changed it's mind about being a solid. The flywheel disintegrated into many small molten hot pieces looking for their hot ticket out of the car. Luckily, the non-aluminum bell housing fitted to those cars kept the parts from coming straight upward, severing on the owner's feet. Instead, the parts went through a small hole they created behind the air cleaner, roughly the size of your average iPhone.

In the video footage of that day's race and festivities, there are three only three frames of film that capture the explosion. The first frame shows a normal race car pedaling hard. The second, shows a large flashbang that covers most all of the car, with only the wheels being noticeable because they are off the ground. And the final frame, shows a normal race car pedaling hard, but with no power.

As some of you may suspect, when something shoots out from under the hood of your race car, a couple lines may get severed. You'd be right. The pieces of disintegrated flywheel cut ties to the electrical, gas, and brake lines.

The owner then found himself in a slightly sticky situation. He was traveling at roughly over 130 MPH with no power and no brakes, headed towards a curve and a wall. Luckily, the owner is no amateur street racer. He did the only that could be done at that time, which is to throw it into a low gear, spin out, and hopefully eat out enough track before any damage occurred.

After colliding with a barrier wall at about 10 MPH, he had some broken fiberglass and a pair of underwear that needed changing. After that, the car was limped to the trailer, taken back to Kansas, and the rebuild began.

One thing that should be noted is that 1984 was not the time of full-faced proper helmets and safety equipment. 1984 was still that time of the open-faced helmet. When the flywheel on the GT350R disintegrated, a still spritely Carroll Shelby was still coming from behind with increasing speed. After the flywheel made it ascent towards heaven, the wind took the molten pieces and shot them backwards. One particular piece, quite angry about it's current predicament, made a B-line straight for Carroll, and struck him in the face.

Luckily, a word I seem to have used a lot in the article, the piece only left Carroll with a particularly long cut on his face, and nothing more. He walked right out of the car without even the slightest grimace of pain.

Like most sane people, the owner decided to stop racing his million dollar Shelby competitively, as to keep some of car in one piece for the years to come.

Now here's where I come in. I sat in it.

I didn't drive it, of course, because 1) No sane man would let a 20-year-old drive their retirement fund and 2) It's not street legal. While everybody else drove right into the building for the show display, (myself included, in someone else's SL63 AMG, since nobody was asking) he had to trailer the car all the way into the building. It's a shame you can't hoon one of these against Yolo McSwagster in his Prelude.

It isn't really what you'd expect a crazy expensive car would feel like. And quite frankly, that's because it wasn't a crazy expensive car when it was released in 1965. Sure, it wasn't cheap, but it was only about the price of a GT3 Porcshe today. The delightful magic of Barrett-Jackson mania and appreciation skyrocketed this cars value into the stars. And also, keep in mind this is a stripped-out full-fledged race car, so it's not luxurious. It's about as well equipped as a Turkish prison. (Clarkson)

It's a straight business machine. You sit cocooned in a tiny vintage racing seat, staring at the face of a 10k tach, and you have a shifter. That's it. Everything's old, the panels are all scuffed from years of proper use, and there's dents everywhere. But somewhere in that nostalgia, it's just so much better that way. I've sat in many different rotisserie-restored muscle cars, and they just never feel anywhere as good as original ones do. It felt alive; antiquated, but alive.

1984 wasn't the only time that Carroll Shelby would cross paths with this creation of his. In 2010, at a Shelby Meet also hosted at Hallett Motor Speedway, outside Tulsa, Carroll and the men who built the R-cars showed up as honored guests of the event. The crew who built the R even climbed through it and pointed out different places that they had left marks and personal insignias on the car. It was a very nostalgic moment for all involved. They finished by having one of the crew sign underneath the trunk lid.

Lastly, before leaving, Carroll Shelby walked up to the owner and very sternly said, "Don't ever restore it."

quarterlifecrisis > Jay Lauer 12/11/2013 at 11:21

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I've seen a total of 1 GT 350R in real life. This story is cool. That's all I've got.

ScreenShot > Jay Lauer 12/13/2013 at 19:30

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The only one I ever saw in person had been stolen and levied. It had front/rear damage and it took a year to make it all nice again (Shelby was in no hurry to supply parts). It sat along side a 427 Cobra that had been put on it's side at 150 mph outside of 'Vegas, then repaired as time permitted.

They both quietly disappeared soon after the work was done. This was a long time ago...

Jay Lauer > ScreenShot 12/13/2013 at 21:33

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That would make a good mystery story. Have any more information on them?

ScreenShot > Jay Lauer 12/13/2013 at 22:24

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The Cobra was made well by a long time mechanic at his home. I think he paid $5k for it - his skills with aluminum aircraft repair were used to put it back on the road. He did the work in a shop next to his home. This was a man that took two wrecked XK-Es...one horribly smashed in the front and the other in the rear - and made one that was road worthy ( I saw him do the same thing with four Corvairs as well ). It was painted a dark cream color to match the tan leather interior. I lost track of how many great looking cars came out of that shop. I spent many hours working free at his house/shop so I could learn whatever I could about the rainbow of vehicles that passed thru. I had a '56 F100 with a T-Bird 312 that he repainted a gorgeous red lacquer for me.

He would take the Cobra out on rare occasions. No windscreen, he wore flight goggles on the street. It made noise that would open the heavens. Painted a stunning metal flake blue, you'd swear the driveway would crack underneath as it sat and idled. I was riding along one day and we found ourselves stuck behind a long line of cars, trying to just get out of the neighborhood, waiting on a side street while the traffic on the main street crept along. He and the Cobra were starting to overheat - suddenly, he jumped on it, steering left around the string of more than 1/2 dozen immobile cars ahead of us, and landed out on the main street in a spot barely big enough for the tiny Cobra between two other cars waiting for the line to move. I wasn't sure we touched asphalt at all from start to stop. All I knew was that my ears were ringing, we were pointed in the right direction, we'd made no contact with any other car and we were still alive.

He was tossing a ball around with his German Shepard one day, when the dog bumped into an unsecured acetylene tank. The tank made a slow motion lean towards the aluminum skinned passenger door of the Cobra and as I watched in horror, time almost froze while he lept to stop it - the result was a 4" vertical crease right at the curve where the top of the door turned down to the side panel. Ouch...such a shame. Oh well, one more job added to the list.

Last I heard, it changed hands a couple of times, and the last owner I knew of wasn't even aware that it had been crashed. I was told that person paid $7k for it, which seemed fair at that time, but prices were already starting to climb.

One of the sons of the gentleman that did the Cobra repaired the GT 350. By that time, they knew which levers to pull for any Shelby parts they needed.

When done it didn't stay around long and went dark to my knowledge. I only recall it was red when it came in and blue when it went out.

Poppasquat > Jay Lauer 12/14/2013 at 00:15

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Roughly 35-36 of these were made and we're design as purpose-built race cars.

...we're design as purpose-built...? Spell-check cannot completely replace a good proof-reading and a good editor.

PlayerWAN > Jay Lauer 12/14/2013 at 14:19

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Those photos! if I'm correct, they were taken in Wichita's Blacktop Nationals, yes? I was there too!

PogosRevenge > Jay Lauer 12/14/2013 at 15:28

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Great story. Thank You!

Jay Lauer > PlayerWAN 12/14/2013 at 19:33

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Ah, you got to sit in Ballinger's GT. Nice stuff.

We had the Shelby's (and me in someone's Benz) across from his GT and Bonnell's Viper next to it.

George McNally > Jay Lauer 12/29/2013 at 13:50

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Very cool.