The Shelby American (Fall 2016)

59 / 113

SAAC: So, the kit Cobra was your
next project?
BURGY: I kept talking to ERA about
building a 289 FIA car but they
weren’t doing one. Nobody was except
Pacific Coast Cobra. I remember try-
ing to call them but they never an-
swered their phone. Finally, one day I
called and somebody did answer it. I
said, “ I’m interested in your 289 Cobra
kit car I’ve seen in Kit Car magazine.”
The guy said, “ I’m from the sheriff’s of-
fice and we’re cleaning this place out
right now. If you want anything you
better get out here quick.” A guy in
Illinois ended up getting their molds –
I think his name was Randy Berry. He
was doing Marauder cars and a couple
of other replicas, but I could never get
him to start making FIA bodies. I went
to Carlisle’s kit car meet several times
and Run ‘N Gun several times and I
ended up ordering a 427 car from ERA
with the idea of having my body guy
chop it all up and put a 289 grille in it
and modify the flares. At that time, the
wait time was about a year. Six
months later Peter Portante called me
and said, “ We cancelled your order.”
“ You what?” He said, “ Fran Kress
wants us to do an FIA car and you
want us to do one and there are
enough guys who want them now that
we’re going to do the FIA car. I figured
you’d be pretty pissed if you bought
the 427 car and we came out with an
FIA car six months later.” So I got the
very first ERA FIA. It was actually a
prototype car. I went to ERA in Con-
necticut three times to take a look at
it. One time was when Howard was re-
tiring from the Coast Guard and there
was a big party for him. It was good
that I went to ERA to check it out be-
cause I was going to put that 351
Cleveland in it, which they had never
done before, so we had to do some
frame modifications. I got that car to-
gether and started taking it to conven-
tions and having some fun with it. I
had planned to open track it and au-
tocross it because I used to autocross
my first GT350, at Nelson Ledges and
a bunch of parking lot autocrosses. But
by the time I got the car done my leg
was so bad that I could drive the car,
but that was about it. [ Note: as a child,
Burgy suffered from polio, an infec-
tious disease caused by a virus which
resulted in muscle weakness, most
often in the legs. Decades after recov-
ery, between 25% and 50% of individ-
uals who have recovered from
childhood polio can develop post-polio
syndrome, which is a slow develop-
ment of muscle weakness similar to
the initial infection and fatigue. Burgy
is now suffering from muscle weak-
ness in his right leg.] At SAAC-29 at
MIS in 2004, on the open track, I
passed everything in front of me and
then spun it. I blamed it on the fresh
tires I had on the car [ laughs]. Luckily,
the guy behind me was paying atten-
tion and didn’t run into to me. I got the
car back on the track and then decided
that was about enough of open track
events for me. Earlier in the day I had
taken my wife, Claudia, out with me
and we sat in the staging area for
what seemed like forever, waiting and
waiting, and wondering what the hold-
up was. When we made our first lap
we discovered what the waiting was
for. That’s when we saw Barry Smith’s
aluminum Cobra replica was in the
wall. It was about half the size it used
to be. When Claudia saw that, she
said, “ Take me in. TAKE ME IN! I’ve
had enough.” The combination of that
and my spin the next time I went out
was enough to convince me to hang it
up.
SAAC: You’ve had a lot of experience
with owning cars early-on. You’ve cer-
tainly owned more cars and had more
experiences with them than today’s
average member.
BURGY: I’ve had a couple of dozen
Mustangs, a lot of them Hi-Po Mus-
tangs. Three GT350s and a GT500 and
two Tigers. I’ve never built an engine
by myself but I’ve taken a lot of cars
apart and pulled the engines out. I
used to do the bodywork on my daily-
driver cars but I wouldn’t do anything
that I was showing. I liked customiz-
ing my cars. In my ERA I put the 351
Cleveland in it and 427-style side
pipes and a different roll bar. The
same guy who did the roll cage in my
Pantera did the rollbar for the ERA.
Actually, he was retired and came
back to the business he had sold and
did the roll bar work to my drawings.
I made drawings and bought convo-
luted plastic tubing that I could shape
to show him how I wanted the side
braces to drop from the rear hinge pil-
lar down the side so I could climb in
and out of the car. It worked out pretty
well. I had another guy polish the
wheels for me. The aluminum wheels
on the Cobra were much tougher to
polish than the magnesium Campag-
nolo wheels on the Pantera. I did the
magnesium wheels myself but I tried
the aluminum wheels but just couldn’t
get them to shine. I finally ran into
someone who had the right equipment
to polish the aluminum wheels and
they came out nice.
SAAC: When you were working at
Ford you were probably able to meet a
lot of other car guys. We’re guessing
The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2016 57
A 289 Hi-Po Comet Caliente occupied a spot in Burgy’s driveway for a time. Like the
rest of his cars, it didn’t stay stock for long, acquiring a a very rare (for 1965) twin-scoop
fiberglass Cyclone hood and then grew Guardsman Blue LeMans stripes. Wheels were
14-inch Shelby ten spokes.