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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2016 9
CAN we ever overdose on TMI
AT SHELBY AMERICAN?
It seemed like a fairly innocuous
photo of the 1966 Shelby Paxton pro-
totype, 6S051. The car was parked in
front of Shelby American’s 6501 West
Imperial Highway facility for a public
relations photo. It’s fairly rare because
it is a color transparency; most factory
photography was black-and-white be-
cause most magazines didn’t use color
for press releases and news items. If
they wanted color they would assign
their own photographer to shoot a car.
Steve Yates owned the car and
when he died of leukemia in 1995 he
left it to his wife, Joyce. In her will,
Joyce donated the car to the Shelby
American Collection in Boulder, Col-
orado. She also left Steve’s expansive
collection of Shelby literature and
memorabilia to the museum. Jim
Cowles volunteered to deliver the car
and all of the memorabilia to Boulder
from Nashville, Indiana. The car came
with a file drawer-sized box of docu-
ments relating to 6S051. Yates saved
everything he could find about the car
as well as every receipt and scrap of
paper generated during his ownership
and subsequent restoration. The car
was painted white with blue LeMans
stripes when he bought it but when he
realized it had originally been green,
he restored it back to its original
specs. The Shelby American Collection
loaned the box of paperwork to Cowles
so he could go through it and make
scans of anything important.
Two almost identical photos were taken of the car that day, one in color and one in black-and-white. 6S051 was originally delivered
in white but it was painted Ivy Green (the first non-white GT350) without LeMans stripes and as a Paxton prototype it had unique
side stripes that said “G.T. 350 S.” It was a four-speed car with a Detroit Locker, Cragar/Shelby wheels and a rear seat.
Among the publicity photos taken of the car were an engine shot showing an aluminum
“Paxton” air box, painted in black krinkle-finish, which was standard with Paxton af-
termarket units. When the Paxton unit became a legitimate option, a revised air box
was produced with “SHELBY” replacing the Paxton script. Several photos of the engine
on a wooden pallet were also taken prior to installing it in the car. A piece of wire was
used to hold the supercharger’s air cleaner in position for the photos [
note someone’s
hand at the left of the photo, holding the wire
].