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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2019 14
LONG-TERM STORAGE AND A MYSTERY ENGINE
Some pictures sent to us for the
Registry don’t always make it in. Not
that they’re not interesting; it’s just
that there isn’t room for everything,
even if it fits our template. And not
everything does. Some are just fasci-
nating side stories, like this one. Dar-
ryll Ashby of Queensland, Australia
sent us some pictures of 6S2020. The
black car was not originally sold and
lingered at Shelby American, used as
a company car until the summer of
1967 when the airport factory was va-
cated. It was purchased by Jack Lance.
The engine was removed and sold and
the car was parked in the garage of a
house in Southern California Lance
was renting. He subsequently moved
to Northern California and left it in
the garage. Rent money given to a
roommate never made it to the land-
lord who subsequently sold the car.
Two owners later it was purchased
in 1971 by Don Montgomery in Long
Beach. Now red, the rust-free Califor-
nia car was stored in his garage for the
next thirty-six years. Somewhere it ac-
quired another engine and the serial
number on it revealed it originally
came out of 5R540.
Maybe “stored” is too kind a word.
“Neglected” and “ignored” are proba-
bly a little more descriptive. It was
buried in the middle of everything
with little or no value that you can pile
into a garage (note 10-spokes hanging
on the wall in the upper left). It is pic-
tured [
below, left
] after it was ex-
humed from the garage by present
owner Darryll Ashby and, once
cleaned off, was actually none the
worse for wear. Ashby rescued it and
took it home to Australia.
After tearing down the engine,
Ashby discovered it had all the fea-
tures that were standard on Shelby
competition engines. The heads were
6S2020 in Long Beach in 1977
[
above
], before disappearing in stor-
age. The car had been used by the
owner’s son as high school transporta-
tion. Today [
left
] it is properly restored
to its original Raven Black.
stamped with “Roger’s Porting Serv-
ice” with the banana ports welded
closed, flycut pistons were number-
stamped, it had steel shim head gas-
kets, the rotating assembly was
balanced, the oil pump was shimmed
and stamped, oil galleys were
threaded and it had a degreed har-
monic balancer. All the things done in
Shelby’s engine shop. The engine had
been in the car since the 1960s.