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didn’t know, take my car to a place I
didn’t know, to show to someone I was-
n’t even sure existed. Oh, and keep it
overnight. It turned out she was dat-
ing a guy who wanted to be a me-
chanic and loved Shelbys. His last
name was even the same as mine, but
he really wasn’t a very good mechanic
and he didn’t have a Shelby. And be-
fore long he wouldn’t have the girl.
Was it love at first sight? I don’t know
but today she is my wife and she tells
people I have had the car longer then
I have had her.
By now the Shelby was really
starting to show its age and they were
really starting to become valuable.
During this time we ran into a guy
who also had 1966 Shelby GT350H,
6S1855. He was going to sell it be-
cause it had some issues. He had it
parked in an alley in Northwest DC
and I tried and tried to find someone
who wanted to buy it. No luck; nobody
wanted it. So I went to the bank and
borrowed the $2,500 he was asking
and bought it.
The car was in ok shape; it had
some rust and had been in an accident
that damaged the right front. It had a
shelf instead of a back seat, a top-
loader four-speed, frozen front brakes,
no exhaust and it ran horribly. We
pulled the engine and found it needed
a block. I happened to have the origi-
nal block out of my car (6S1431) so it
went in this car (6S1855).We fixed the
clutch linkage, installed a new ex-
haust system, got a Holley 715 and in
almost no time we had a pair of his
and hers Hertz cars.
My wife and I were in the market
for a house and we had saved some
money. Along with a little loan from
my mother we were able to get our
first house, with a mortgage payment
of $435 a month. How were we going
to be able to afford it? We decided to
sell one of the cars to pay my mother
back. I got in touch with Bill Collins
(Bill Collins Collector Fords, Harris-
burg, Pennsylvania) and sold him the
car for $5,000. Little did I know I had
not seen the last of that car.
I was finally forced to take my
original Shelby off the road. I was
driving one day and heard a noise, like
a metal chain jangling along the
ground. The driver’s seat belt had
fallen through a hole in the floor and
was bouncing along on the road. It was
obviously time to stop driving the car.
I checked underneath and the floors
were rotted, the frame rails were weak
and the brake lines were moist. The
car was a ticking time bomb waiting to
take someone out. So I parked it in the
driveway and it sat there for about
five years.
We moved to a new house and I
still didn’t have a garage, so I moved
the Shelby to my dad’s driveway. He
said people would stop by once or
twice a week and ask about the car. It
was rusty, filthy, covered in tree sap
and bird crap. I knew it had to be
saved and I knew I would have to do it
myself. I had been saving parts since I
first got it, buying them here and
there at the Ford Dealer I worked at:
a padded dash, $12.00; fenders,
$29.00; full quarters, $102.00. The list
grew and grew. My father passed away
in 1996 and finally I moved the car to
my friend Dave’s barn. He had all of
the tools and equipment to do the job;
all I needed was time and money.Well,
with three kids and one family income,
money was something that wasn’t
abundant, but time was.
We started it for the first time in
six years and it belched black smoke.
The exhaust had fallen off, one plug
wire was missing and the tires were
going flat as I drove it slowly into the
barn. It had no brakes so it was a very
slow trip. We began disassembling it,
taking care to preserve as much as
possible and we took hundreds and
hundreds of pictures along the way.
The floors were gone, the rockers had
mice nesting in them, the cowls were
full of squirrel nests and were rotted
all the way through. In short, it was a
disaster. During its time in the drive-
way a tree had fallen on the roof and
dented it.
We pushed on, taking apart what
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 76
And before I knew it, I owned two Hertz cars. But not for long.