The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

think they’ve found a car and hope to get it cheap, usually to resell it. Liska didn’t want to give away any details without being assured that they guy was the actual owner. I was able to as- sure Liska that they guy was genuine, and once we crossed that hurdle we found out some interesting informa- tion about the car. It had been tested with a supercharger and then a Con- elec fuel injection system. That even- tually led the owner to ask me if I wanted to restore the car and I said yes. And that’s how I got involved with the Conelec cars. One of the previous registries identified that car as an EFI car. That led to a lot of questions, like what was it, who was involved and how do I find an EFI system? SAAC: You said that Phil Murphy helped you with researching a lot of these details. DISHER: In the earlier days of the Forum, Forum 1.0, Phil and I con- versed quite a bit and I told him of my interest in the fuel injection cars and he had some interest as well. We jointly looked for anyone who could help us and there really wasn’t any- one. We wouldn’t find out why until later. The reason was that it wasn’t re- ally a Shelby project. It was something Fred Goodell was working on but he had subcontracted it out to another vendor. Which would have been Con- elec. We couldn’t find out anything about the company because it had gone out of business in the early 1970s. The only thing we could find – actually Phil found it – was a patent diagram for an electronic fuel pump that Conelec built. That had the inven- tor’s name on it, E.D. Long. Trying to find someone named Long was like looking for someone named Smith. The odds were not very good. Phil eventually found an E.D. Long living in Elmira, New York which where Conelec had been located. It was a re- ally good clue. I ended up writing him a letter. At that point the Internet was prevalent but I felt he was probably old-school and would be more open to a personal letter than an impersonal email. I sent the letter and didn’t get a response. I figured if he wasn’t going to answer the letter he certainly wouldn’t call or respond by email. After a few months I actually got a call from his daughter. She said her dad had been sick but he wanted to talk to me and share some things about the company, but right now was not a re- ally good time. Eventually he did get a hold of me but I was kind of at a dis- advantage initially, because I didn’t know what kind of questions to ask. But he was very forthcoming and shared everything he could about the company and the Shelby program, how they worked with Shelby Automo- tive and Fred Goodell. We spent time before SAAC-37 at Watkins Glen, in 2012. I knew he wasn’t in real good health but I invited him to accompany me to the convention and he said “ Yes. ” I had to convince his daughter who was a nurse. She took him on a trip there [ Elmira is less than an hour from the track .] It was taxing on him but he did enjoy it. I visited him at his home and he showed me a lot of the fuel injection parts he had saved, and some of the drawings.We went into his dining room and he showed me the chair that Fred Goodell sat in when he visited. “ I sat over here,” he said, “and Fred sat there, and we’d have a whiskey and talk about business. ” And I thought that was kind of cool. After that convention I approached him and said, “ I think you have enough parts to build a system. Would that be some- thing you would have an interest in helping me with? ” And he said “ Yes. ” I realized that he was living on bor- rowed time but he had a son named Chris who was an electrical engineer and I asked Chris if he would help with the project and he agreed. David gave me a lot of instructions on how to do the plumbing and what kind of modifications to make on the car be- fore we actually did the installation. I took my ‘69 Shelby out to Elmira and after a couple of days we had it up and running. After the project, David Long sat in his chair in the dining room and I sat in Fred Goodell’s chair and we had a celebratory whiskey, one for Fred and one for Conelec. SAAC: You were really fortunate that things worked out. DISHER: Yes, I was so lucky on so many levels. The one thing I didn’t think about at the time but I got this later, was that I just assumed that everyone had a positive relationship with their father. And while I was there, and afterwards, I discovered that Chris and his dad had had some issues in the past. They didn’t really come up at the time but they did after- wards. It kind of bothered me that I didn’t have the foresight to think about that, that maybe these guys weren’t on the best of terms. But we made it work. SAAC: Well, you weren’t expected to go in there and be a social worker. DISHER: No, I guess not. SAAC: So you put a system on your car and then recreated the parts for other systems? DISHER: What was crazy at the time is he was 83 or 84 years-old at the time, and in failing health; he was on The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 38 David Long and Disher in Long’s garage with an original Colelec fuel pump. Disher and Long at the convention in Watkins Glen. Like most others involved with Shelby American in the 1960s, he had no idea of the level of enthusiasm for the cars.