The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Maraniello to oversee production ve- hicle manufacturing. When the Fer- rari deal fell through he stayed at the Research Department and took over the GT program which involved coordinating Design Center and Lola activities. That required him to move to England. He and Ed Hull generated the basic Ford GT design by scruitinizing Eric Broadley’s GT- 6 car. In 1964 when Kar Kraft was established in Dearborn, Chuck was recalled from England to work there. He joined a small team of de- signers, engineers, technicians and fabricators at Kar Kraft for the next six years to handle special projects – which included the Ford GT proto- types. He and Ed Hull were instru- mental in adding Kar Kraft to Ford’s list of potential contributors to its racing effort and he was responsible for the progress and completion of Ford’s projects. He split his time be- tween Dearborn and Slough, Eng- land and got to know Bruce McLaren well. They often discussed race car design and this led to his being introduced to a French com- pany, Hexcel, that developed alu- minum honeycomb construction. Back in the U.S., Mountain and Hull decided to integrate honeycomb con- struction into the new J-Car chassis. Among the first assignments given to Kar Kraft were the development of a new trans-axle assembly which was designated KK T-44 and the in- stallation of the NASCAR 427 en- gine into GT/106. It became the prototype for the MK II and was completed in April of 1965. After Ken Miles’ crash in August of 1966 Mountain traveled to California to examine the wreckage. This resulted Fall 2021 121 Mountain [ left ], Roy Lunn, Ed Hull and Jim Mason. CHARLES “CHUCK” MOUNTAIN May 8, 2021 Like most automotive engineers, Chuck Mountain started out modi- fying and racing cars in his youth. A ‘32 Ford roadster with a hemi en- gine and a Cadillac-powered ‘55 T- Bird spurred his desire to engineer cars. After earning a degree in in- dustrial engineering at Lawrence Technological Institute in South- field, Michigan (Henry and Edsel Ford provided the land for the school right next to their Model T assembly plant) he was hired as an engineer by Mercury Division and he soon moved to Ford’s Scientific Lab and Research Group where he worked on vehicle dymanics and suspension design. After hours he designed and built his own car which he campaigned in SCCA events. He was in line for a transfer to Italy when Enzo Ferrari backed out of the sale of his company to Ford. The plan had been for Mountain to move to