2 / 103
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2016 2
they were unloaded and parked in
a long row. At this point they were
only identified by their Ford VINs
because one of the last things
added to a finished car was the
Shelby serial number, stamped on
the aluminum VIN plate. Number-
wise, they were parked outside at
random.
When it came time to move the
cars inside to be converted into R-
Models, they were brought in one
or two at a time. Again, at random.
The first thing to happen was that
the 289 Hi-Po engine was removed
and sent to the engine shop. There
were already other 289 Hi-Po en-
gines there, in various states of dis-
assembly. All of these engines were
basically considered little more
than components. Heads were re-
moved and sent to an outside port-
ing shop (Mondello’s, Roger’s
Porting Service or Valley Head
Service). There were heads going
out and coming in all the time.
When an engine was being assem-
bled, someone just grabbed the
next pair of heads that were avail-
able.
The short block was disassem-
bled and all clearances were
checked. High compression pistons
replaced the stock pistons and an
S1CR camshaft was slipped in.
Once everything was assembled,
the engine was dyno-tested and
then installed in the next R-Model
that was ready for it.
So, the next time you hear
someone referring to an R-Model
with matching numbers, they are
demonstrating how little they
know about GT350 competition
models.
PARDEE FINDS A FAIRY
I’M LOVIN’ IT
We never thought we’d be able to
use the word “fairy” in a headline in
this magazine without incurring the
wrath of the LGBT lobby. But it just
goes to show you that we live in
strange times. Howard Pardee, of all
people, is smack in the middle of this
and frankly, that doesn’t surprise us.
He sent us the following info with a
picture of the book cover at the right.
“
If Spriggan, Bogles, Trow and
Dryad are part of your vocabulary,”
said Pardee,
“then you probably have
already read this book. Former SAAC
member David Bell of Monument, Col-
orado spotted a couple of Shelby men-
tions in a book he was reading – for
what purpose we can only guess
.”
The book is titled, “A Fairy’s Guide
to Disaster – An Away From Whip-
plethorn Book 1” written by A.W. Har-
toin and is available as a free Kindle
download from Amazon, should your
curiosity get the better of you.
www.amazon.com/B007J68WNK
The Shelby references are near the end of the book. #1: “
Not fast like this
one. This is a Shelby Cobra. It does zero to sixty in four seconds
.” #2: “
Tess’s
disappeared and Judd’s popped up from the other side of the back seat. This
Mustang is awesome
.” It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when we take it out
of context. If you want more you’ll have to read the whole book. We’ll bet that
even John Atzbach doesn’t have a copy in his collection!
While visiting the drive-thru window
at McDonald’s recently we left feeling
a vague sense of deja vu but couldn’t
put our finger on it. We were halfway
home when we had one of those, “
Hey!
Wait a minute!
” reactions and sud-
denly realized the connection.