The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

MILES: We’re enjoying this phase of it. I don’t mean just because of the Daytona win. That was really pleasant to have a win behind us after having a hundred-percent record of never fin- ishing a race. The thing we’re enjoying now is stepping off from what we’ve learned and applying it to the future. We’re enjoying getting it to be an all- American product, too. It was kind of an international marque. We were only able to do the basic design in Dearborn but we went off to Europe to get it made. There were a lot of Euro- pean vendors. The essence of bringing it back to Dearborn is actually to have all of the components made in the U.S. We can be very proud that this is an all-American car. SMITH: So it isn’t at all beyond the realm of possibility that the thing can be completely produced in America. MILES: It would be my guess, and I’m not speaking for the company here, but when we get to producing the next batch I think you will see them all made here. SMITH: You’ve done most of the de- velopment driving on the GT40. MILES: Some of it. I do most of the development driving for Shelby Amer- ican but over the last couple of months I’ve been terribly busy with the 427 Cobra... SMITH: Is that your baby? MILES: Yes. And the GT350 Mustang and so I’ve had Richie Ginther and Bondurant to most of the driving on the Ford GT. SMITH: Could you tell me what you’ve done to the car so far; what gen- erally has been accomplished with the car since it’s been taken over by Shelby American? MILES: When we received the cars the handling was atrocious. When we received them they had been taken apart and put back together so many times that I think the original settings had gotten lost. We discovered that when we reset the suspension to the design specifications, for the correct camber and caster and so-on, we re- stored the car to design conditions it improved enormously. That was our first job – to get the car back to where it started from. SMITH: Blueprinted. MILES: Right. Then we embarked on a dual program of attempting to im- prove the aerodynamics of the car, which were excruciatingly bad... SMITH: The internal? MILES: And external. And a weight reduction program, too. We felt the car was grossly overweight. And it still is overweight, but it was even more over- weight. With the aerodynamic prob- lem, we were very fortunate to have the services of a person from Ford’s Aeroneutronics. They were part of the manned space program and they had available a lot of research equipment and a lot of know-how. And we were able to set the car up with pressure sensors all over the skin. SMITH: Yes, I heard about this. It was a three-weekend program at Riverside and Willow Springs. MILES: Yes, we prepared the cars during the week and on weekends their personnel would come and help us with the car. SMITH: Is there anyone at Aeroneu- tronics who should get some credit? MILES: Very definitely. The man pri- marily responsible was Herbert Karsh. He was our main contact. He was responsible for making all of this possible. Of course, he had a number of highly talented men working for him who did the actual work. But without Herb Karsh’s cooperation we would never have had access to these highly skilled minds. SMITH: What would their main con- tribution have been? MILES: The problem we had with the car was essentially one of airflow within the car being affected by exter- nal factors. For example, we were get- ting no airflow, or very little airflow, into the brakes, although they had huge ducts pointed towards them; os- tensibly directing vast quantities of air but in fact the brakes were over- heating badly. The engine was getting too hot. The engine compartment, it- self, was getting too hot. The cooling water was getting too hot. The oil was getting too hot. All of this in spite of a large number of apertures on the car. We discovered that what in fact was happening was that due probably to design changes that had taken place over a period of time without reference to the original specifications, practi- cally all of the ductwork was in a stall position. The front brakes had big scoops facing forward which were sit- ting directly in a stall area which was being created by the front edge of the car, so that no air was getting into the brake ducts. The radiator outlets were under conditions where the airflow over the top of the hood and the top of The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 44