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the place was loaded with them.
BURGY: Working at Ford was one of
the biggest helps as far as keeping me
interested as an enthusiast. I started
there in 1970 as a technical illustrator
in the Body Engineering Department,
making drawings for shop manuals. I
was later promoted to a position as a
Technical Writer in the Service Engi-
neering Department, writing the text
for Shop Manuals and Owner Guides
in Service Engineering. I had access to
all the shop manuals, a micro-fiche
machine and all the obsolete parts
books. I teamed up with Mike Remien-
schneider and a couple of guys like
that who really knew their stuff. And
Roger Hodyka, of course. I just had a
penchant to be able to remember and
quote part numbers. I could remember
part numbers better than I could peo-
ple’s names. I could remember some-
one’s VIN better than I could
remember their name.
SAAC: Were there a bunch of people
within Ford who got together to play
with cars when they weren’t working?
BURGY: There were employee car
clubs within the company and the one
I was most active with was called the
Ford Motorsports Club. They were a
group of guys who were focused on au-
tocrossing. They competed in parking
lot autocrosses at Ford World Head-
quarters. That’s where I met Bruce
Cambern. He would run his 427 Cobra
in the parking lot. It was overkill. I ran
the GT350. I never ran the Pantera in
an autocross. I did take the Pantera
out to Michigan International Speed-
way when I put on a regional SAAC
meet there.
SAAC: How did you get interested in
Shelby serial numbers?
BURGY: I just started collecting serial
numbers. Back then
Autoweek and
Competition Press
used to typically
publish ads with serial numbers in
them. I would go look at any Shelbys
in the area and take pictures of them
with my Kodak Instamatic or Po-
laroid. I owned 6S1206 and found
6S1207 about twenty miles away from
me, and I went out to see the owner. It
was a guy names Joe Wasche, and I
saw him at Lime Rock at SAAC-25,
without his car. I went to Oscoda,
Michigan to visit some friends and he
showed up there with the car at a local
car show. It was a white and gold car.
At the time I bought 1206 I didn’t
know it was originally white and gold.
It was white and blue when I got it. I
was just out of this world when I
bought that car. I got a Shelby! And I
was sitting behind the wheel and look-
ing out over that hood scoop, and
thinking, “
Wow! I am King of the Hill
now.
” When I got home and flipped the
back seat down and I almost stepped
through the floor because the floor pan
was so rusty. One day at a 25¢ car-
wash I was getting up real close to the
door and the paint started blowing off.
I was driving back and forth from Ohio
to Michigan almost every weekend,
and my cousin had his ‘67 Mustang
painted by a guy down there, and he
did a pretty nice job. So, I took my
Shelby there to have him paint it. I
used to go down there to check on it
once in a while, and he didn’t seem to
be making a lot of progress. I was leav-
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 58
When Shelby brought his 427 S/C completion Cobra to SAAC-17 in Portland, Burgy
won a ride with the Old Man. And it wasn’t a mild, Sunday afternoon spin. Shelby wasn’t
afraid to lean on the throttle – and none of his passengers complained.
If Burgy’s technical drawings like this one
[
above
] look familiar to you then you’ve
been reading Ford shop manuals! But he
didn’t limit his artwork to bland parts il-
lustrations.
When Burgy moved to the audio systems
department he created color illustrations
of how the dash controls would look.