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the evening drags, when he noticed
the Buick was starting to labor and
began moving around. He looked in
the rear view mirror and saw the
Shelby bouncing all over the place. He
got it stopped and when he went to in-
vestigate, found that the rear wheels
on the Shelby were locked up. Figur-
ing that there might be a problem
with the transmission, out came the
driveshaft, and he turned around and
went back home. It turned out that the
transmission had seized up. Manual
transmissions don’t like being flat-
towed with the driveshaft installed be-
cause the mainshaft is being turned
while the input shaft is not. As a result
the oil is not being circulated properly.
For some reason, Borg Warner T-
10s seem even more prone to this
problem. Anyhow, he ended up build-
ing a close-ratio top-loader for it, and
he took all of what was left that was
any good from the T-10 (mainly the
case and extension housing) and sold
them at a Shelby meet somewhere “up
north,” as he put it (I assumed SAAC-
4 at Downingtown, Pennsylvania in
1979, since I know he took 6S1342 to
that convention), and he had no recall
of who bought it. With no serial num-
ber on transmission cases (at least on
aluminum T-10s in Shelbys), no name
or no location, I figured finding the re-
mains was a lost cause.
Over the years (and the first few
of those with limited funds), I beat the
bushes locally for a transmission. I
missed two locally while I was still in
school (and I didn’t have two nickels to
rub together, anyway). Once I finished
school and had a job, the right trans-
mission still seemed elusive. Locally, I
missed the one from 5S225 in 1989
($900). I saw a damaged bare main
case at several swap meets around
1998-2000 (same guy had it and was
asking around $800) and a couple of
all aluminum GT350 units in the
$1500-2000 range in 2000 at both Ford
Carlisle and SAAC-25.
In 2001 Paul Zimmons was getting
ready to sell off his extensive 1965-
1966 Shelby parts stash and he asked
me to look at his list to help him arrive
at a fair selling price. He wanted to
sell everything in a single lot and was-
n’t particularly interested in selling
anything piecemeal. I looked at the
list, and what was on it but an alu-
minum T-10 for a GT350. I gave him
my opinion on what his parts inven-
tory was worth, and I also mentioned
that if he would consider selling the
aluminum transmission separately, I
would give him a fair price for it, based
on the current market value.
He thought about it and told me
that my offer was too high and he sold
it to me for a bit less than I had of-
fered. I was tickled to death that I fi-
nally had a nice aluminum
transmission for my car which was the
only major piece it was missing. It
wasn’t the original one that had been
in my car but what the heck – the orig-
inal one was long gone. Or so I
thought.
Fast forward to 2012. A lot more
had been learned in that time about
what kind of T-10s came in what Shel-
bys (and 6S1342 should have had an
aluminum main case with a cast iron
extension housing). No worries, as I
had a barn full of T-10 transmissions
and parts, including iron Mustang ex-
tension housings. One day I saw a post
on the SAAC Forum asking about an
aluminum T-10 for a GT350 with no
casting date. The general consensus on
the forum was that it was for a really
early ‘65 GT350. One of those who re-
sponded was one of my semi-local
Shelby buddies, long time GT350
owner and enthusiast, Rob Beck. I
then went to check my inbox, and, co-
incidentally, there was an email from
Rob. He said that for a number of
years he had been meaning to ask me
something; he had an aluminum main
case from a ‘66 GT350 T-10, and didn’t
I sell it to him back in the ‘70s at a
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 68