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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2019 4
HAND-HOLDING.
We used to get a lot of letters
but today they are the exception.
Now, it’s emails – and that’s not a
bad thing. In fact, we greatly prefer
emails. No more writing a response
that begins, “
In regard to your ques-
tion about
...” whatever it was. With
email you can start right in with the
response because the original email
prompting the response is right on
your screen. No stationary, no en-
velopes, no stamps. And instead of
taking a few days to get to you it
happens as soon as the “send” but-
ton is hit. No downside here.
Over the past six months or so,
a lot of the emails we’ve received
seem to revolve around older SAAC
members wondering about selling
cars they have had for a long time.
Most of us know there will come a
day when it makes more sense to
sell a car than to hold on to it, but
few realize that day is so close. We
are happy to dispense a general
opinion, shaded with a little wisdom
gained over the years, but we stop
short of providing specifics because
every case is different and there is
no one-size-fits-all answer.
The question of “should I sell?”
can be asked from two different lev-
els and usually both are relevant.
From the emotional side, most own-
ers start out with, “
I’ve had my car
so long, selling it would feel like cut-
ting a leg off.
” They wonder if they
will feel differently about them-
selves after it’s gone. Will they be
something less than they were
when they owned the car? Not being
a psychiatrist, we do know that, es-
pecially after owning one of these
cars for so long, they become part of
who or what we are. We attach so
much relevance to the car that we
cannot imagine what it would be
like when it’s no longer sitting in
the garage under that car cover.
BIG BLOCK SHELBY FETCHES BIG BUCKS
The one-of-a-kind 1967 GT500
Super Snake has been bouncing back
and forth between auctions for several
years, now. It seems to have become
something of a curio, with each subse-
quent owner seeming to acquire it
more in an effort to determine how
much of a higher price it would bring
at the next auction rather than just
appreciating it for what it is.
And exactly what is it? The car’s
history has been verified without
question. In 1967 Goodyear was about
to unveil a new economy tire called the
Thunderbolt. They scheduled a promo-
tional event at their San Angelo,
Texas, proving ground and invited
Carroll Shelby to bring his “fastest”
Shelby Mustang. Instead of picking a
GT500 out of inventory, Shelby tasked
Chief Engineer Fred Goodell to come
up with something that would knock
the socks off of Goodyear’s people.
The result was the “Super Snake.”
It was a white GT500 powered by a
GT40 MKII 427 lightweight engine
topped by a 780 cfm Holley. It had
every other trick that Goodell could
come up with: aluminum heads, solid
lifters, aluminum water pump, magne-
sium intake, bundle-of-snakes head-
ers, a large oil cooler with remote filter
and a 4.11 Detroit Locker rear.
The car, turned out with Guards-
man Blue narrow-wide-narrow center
stripes, was shipped to Texas. White
wall Thunderbolt tires were installed
and Shelby took it out and set a top
speed record – 172 mph. Then he
turned it over to Goodell who averaged
142 mph for 500 miles, during which
the tires retained 97% of their tread.
The car was returned to Shelby
American where Goodell sold it to Mel
Burns Ford in Long Beach. Perform-
ance sales manager Don McCain (a
former Shelby employee) had the idea
of building 50 of the Super Snakes,
touting them as the fastest perform-
ance cars ever made. When the final
price was calculated – $7,500 – it was
more expensive than a 427 Cobra and
that torpedoed the project.
Two bidders at the Mecum auction
in Kissimmee, Florida on January 19,
2019 battled for the car. The high bid
was an incredible $2M plus 10%. A
record for any Mustang.