The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

he ever took this car out on a public road. This led to a few more ‘almost for- gotten’ stories. ” A buddy of mine and I attended a Kruse Auction back in the 70s, and true to form it was raining. It always rained during this auction. But we went anyway, because it was only two miles from our house. I brought along a half-gallon bottle of Chablis in a paper bag, and as we were walking around, in the rain, we came upon a yellow Ferrari 330 GTS under a tarp. The young owner was sitting nearby. Well, I wasn’t paying attention and banged the side of his car with my half-gallon of wine, accidently. As you’d expect, he came flying out of his chair in a fit of rage, directed at me. My friend and I took several steps back and immediately began to voice our admiration of his car. After the owner calmed down I asked what he was trying to get for his yellow Fer- rari. The amount seemed reasonable, so I said, ‘I’ll buy it.’ “He was 33 years-old, from Los An- geles, seemed like a nice guy and agreed to follow me back to my house. I just happened to have $9k in cash there, which was the agreed price for the car, and after handing it to him we became best friends. What a turn- around! Today this car would sell for around $6 million. I drove him to the airport in the Ferrari, and stopped off at Trader Vic’s on the way home.While there, a cute young lady asked for a ride in my newly purchased yellow convertible, which I obliged. We jumped in and not long after I at- tempted a ‘Screaming 88’, which in- volves a 180-degree turn using the hand-brake. You simply push in clutch, pull on hand brake, whip the steering wheel, let off hand-brake, and stomp on the gas going in the opposite direction. Smoking tires are a given. I almost executed this perfectly, but did- n’t get the hand-brake off, and as a re- sult we were going backwards at 60 mph. FYI – that’s very fast when going backwards. “ We ended up in a ditch, and it was dark out by now, and I’d consumed quite a bit of alcohol. The last thing I needed was to explain all this to a po- liceman. So, I quickly drove the Fer- rari along the base of the ditch for 25 yards before climbing back out. The entire back end of the car was com- pletely crushed. I drove the young lady back to Trader Vic’s, and woke up next day and see a yellow Ferrari in our driveway. My wife and kids were al- ready up. My first words were, ‘Who’s car is that?’ My wife replied, ‘Oh, that’s yours.’ A friend of mine bought it from me at a discount and fixed it back up. We had some fun back then! “In early 1970 Richie Ginter called to say he was going to be with some clients at Phoenix International Race- way in a few weeks, and offered to set up the gearing on the Porsche 914-6 he’d recently sold me. On the ap- pointed day I towed my Porsche to the race track, close to Richie’s big Porsche transport, where he was unloading Steve McQueen’s Porsche 908. He also had another client there with a car – Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the moon. There was one other guy there that Richie knew, and he was driving an A Production Corvette – actor James Garner. We fiddled around all morning and after qualify- ing, the five of us did some ‘bench rac- ing’ while eating lunch on the tail of Ginther’s transport. Just me, Garner, Conrad, McQueen and Ginther. What was I doing there? That was probably the highlight of my car ownership. ” Jim Emert’s first car was a turbo charged Corvair. Today, at age 75, you’ll find him behind the wheel of a KIA Niro hybrid. Yes, I didn’t make that up. In between these two vehicles he has owned and driven some of the most amazing cars ever made, and I guarantee you he enjoyed every minute. The SHELBY AMERICAN Jim Emert, his wife and three daughters today. CSX2173 CSX3034 Fall 2021 82