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beautiful, but antiseptic and cold mu-
seum interiors, The Simone Museum
is decorated in hand-painted, custom-
built backdrops depicting the venues
where the cars raced back in the day.
From the LeMans track winding be-
neath and beyond the Dunlop bridge,
with race cars placed at the exit, to
faux pits with fuel hoses and manufac-
turers’ signage, to the hay bales of
early racing, to the Brooklands ramp,
to the Italian street scene where the
cars might have raced in the Mille, the
museum transports you back to the
place and time where these cars, the
most advanced of their era, battled for
dominance at the highest level, on a
world stage.
The significance of the Bonneville
display is its Supercharged Cord, like
the one that ran there in 1937; an
Austin Healey 100 BN1 like the one
that ran there in 1953; and the his-
toric Cobra Daytona Coupe.
On September 16th and 17th,
1937, the Cord set a new speed record
of 107.66 miles per hour for the flying
mile. It covered nearly 2500 miles in
24 hours at an average speed of over
101 mph including stops for tires and
gas. The museum’s Cord has a great
deal of sentimental value. Dr. Simone’s
father acquired and restored it in the
mid-1950s after lusting after one since
they were new. He won national
awards with it and handed it down to
his son who kept it in the family until
donating it to the museum.
Austin Healey ran in the Interna-
tional Record Trials at the Bonneville
Salt Flats in September, 1953. The
four-cylinder car broke more than 100
class D records, and all the American
stock car records for distances from 5
to 3,000 miles. The stock Austin
Healey averaged 104 miles per hour
for 30 hours, and a modified stocker
achieved a two-way average of 142.6
miles per hour. The company adver-
tised it as “the world’s fastest produc-
tion car,” and it was at the time. A
wall-size photograph hangs above the
iconic Daytona Coupe, with driver
Craig Breedlove of Bonneville jet car
Land Speed Record fame, standing
next to it, looking like it just finished
the record run. The Daytona Coupe is
the only one of the three cars in the
Bonneville display that is the actual
car that competed there.
The museum has Corvettes, and
lots of Euro-sporty stuff the Daytona
Coupe faced off with, but what
achievement could be made without
competition? Racing’s roots are mean-
ingful to everyone, no matter what
your heroes drove. Did I mention a
GT40 MK II, and a MK IV have a
home there, both of which competed at
LeMans? If you’d like to get up close to
a Cunningham sports racer a private
showing can be arranged with a do-
cent.
The coupe’s history can be traced
from Shelby American’s shop in
Venice, to Riverside Raceway, to the
Daytona Continental, to Sebring, to
the races of the FIA Championship in
Europe, to the Salt Flats of Bonneville.
Throw in a couple of short time own-
ers, Phil Spector amassing a fistful of
speeding tickets on Mulholland Drive,
and the bizarre tale of the car going to
his bodyguard and then to the body-
guard’s daughter who hid in a ware-
house for twenty years. Finally, it fell
into Doctor Simone’s hands and to the
Museum of Simone. The significance of
the car’s history, it’s competition
record notwithstanding, is one of the
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2017 78
Rick MacDonald [
top left
] and Sherry MacDonald [
top right
] get some Coupe seat time.
The MacDonalds were invited by The Simeone Museum as guests to attend the event.
Pictured are Dave MacDonald’s son Rick, Dave’s wife Sherry, Rick’s wife Vickie and
their daughter Brianna. Harvey Sherman is shown chatting up Sherry and Vickie.