The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

need to change at all. The upper scoops from the original car, we had to make some small changes to the entry aperture. We found there was a dead condition at the scoop aperture and we changed the shape of the scoop which improved the air entry enormously. SMITH: Is the drag on the car more or less now than when you began? MILES: I am not absolutely certain what changes we’ve made; we’ve prob- ably gained in some areas and proba- bly lost in others. I can’t answer that question. SMITH: I saw also that spoilers were added on either side of the grille in front. MILES: Yes, These spoilers were the result of some work which Richie [Ginther] did back at LeMans last year. He felt that having them on im- proved the stability of the car by de- flecting the air which was normally rammed under the front of the car, de- flecting it clear of the wheels. He tried it again at Daytona and recommended that we change the car. I tried the car with and without and that’s one of the reasons why we have Richie do all of the testing. He is very familiar with the car and I’m not. As far as I was concerned I wasn’t able to detect any substantial differences in the car with or without the spoilers. But then, I haven’t had that much experience with the car. I’ve tried to accept Richie’s judgement because he knows the car better than I do. SMITH: So, two of the things that you have sought to accomplish were with the aerodynamics. Is that considered satisfactory now? The general aerody- namics of the car? MILES: No, we have more changes to make. For example, with the changes we’ve made we’ve managed to get a long way. We now have a condition where the engine runs excessively cool, and this is a very happy state of affairs; because of that we can re- design the nose of the car and cut down on the air intakes and improve the top speed of the car with no in- crease in horsepower. We really feel that we’ve learned something here, and we will get to something. We’re having new tails made for the car which will... SMITH: Will they point back toward something like we recently saw at Le- Mans? MILES: No, they’re extended further back, making them longer and lower. SMITH: Do you know, offhand, how much weight was saved? MILES: Unfortunately we don’t have an accurate weight for the car since we’ve finished. We got the cars ready for Daytona in a such a hell of a hurry we didn’t have time to weigh them be- fore we shipped them off to Daytona. And of course when they came back after the race we took them all apart and haven’t had time to weigh them. We might have gotten about 100 pounds off the car. SMITH: How much more do you think you can get off the car and where would you take it from? MILES: Well, there’s still a good deal of weight to come off. We want to get right down to the minimum weight. SMITH: Which is what? MILES: The minimum weight is about 2035 pounds. The next point of attack in weight reduction, of course, were the wheels. They were the first thing we changed, actually, were the wheels. The wire wheels were fitted on the car originally were fitted under the misconception... SMITH: On who’s part? Off the record. MILES: I don’t know, off the record or on the record, who was responsible, The wire wheels were fitted in the be- lief that you would get some air flow through the wire wheels with the re- sult that the brakes run cooler. This was a fallacy. You don’t get any air flow through the wire wheels. SMITH: Richie Ginther says that when a wire wheel gets spinning that it’s just like a solid wall. MILES: Yes, like a solid disc. We wanted to decrease the weight, im- prove the strength and increase the rim width. All of this was done by changing from wire wheels to cast magnesium wheels. SMITH: They were aluminum wheels at Daytona. MILES: Actually at Daytona we couldn’t get magnesium wheels so we had aluminum ones cast up. SMITH: Who made those? Halibrand? MILES: Halibrand made them for us, yes. SMITH: And he will also make the magnesium wheels? MILES: He has the machines; we have the pattern. He has a foundry availability and the machines and he makes them very cheaply for us. So we will get a further weight reduction when we get on to magnesium instead of aluminum wheels. The next obvious point of attack is the body, itself. The front and rear deck on the car is fiber- glass. It is very poor fiberglass. Typical European fiberglass. The Europeans don’t know anything about handling fiberglass and they make a mess every time they get involved with it. What we need to do is to get some body shells layed-up using the American technique of using fiberglass runners which will give the rigidity without the weight. SMITH: So you feel confident that you can get the car down to 2035? MILES: Oh, I’m sure of it. Yes. In fact I hope to get it below that so I have some balance. I like to get into a situ- ation where we have a little margin and can afford to carry a few extra pounds. SMITH: Just incidentally, has any thought been given to carrying fire- control systems? MILES: We do have a fire control sys- tem which is somewhat primitive around here. We have a fire extin- guisher which is charged with breatheable, dry compound. The idea being that if the curious circum- stances that you’re involved in an ac- cident, conscious but trapped in the car – highly unlikely – you would then pull out the safety pin and move the operating lever on the fire extin- guisher and put the fire out. SMITH: It gives you one chance. MILES: Especially if it’s a coupe and you are pretty much stuck in it. Al- though if I’m conscious in the car and the car runs on me, I want out. I’m going to get out even if there’s a win- dow in the way. Little things like win- dows can’t stop you when you’re in a hurry. What we’re going to do eventu- The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 46