The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

No one knows more about Shelbys in Germany than Wolfgang Kohrn. He has been a SAAC member for a long time and has helped immeasurably with the registries. Gathering Shelby information in the U.S. is difficult enough; trying to ferret it out in Eu- rope is difficult times ten. He is curi- ous, probing and continuously hunting for details that others have long ago given up on. We are fortunate to have him as a contributor. any Shelby Competition Model enthusiasts follow the details of each R-Model. The best known is probably the “lost“ car, 5R529, which went to Rice-Holman Ford in 1966. Some 56 years later, no- body knows what became of it. The R- Models that went to Peru and the ones that were originally shipped to Europe took years to track down. The cars that were exported in the 1980s and 1990s were also difficult to research, but since the Internet became public domain in 1993, anyone with access to a computer was able to research cars previously thought to be impossible to find. 5R107 was found in 1986 in Ger- many behind a gas station. It had orig- inally been purchased by former Cobra Team driver Jochen Neerpasch who raced it there in a few events be- fore turning it over to his partner to drive. It was sold to a series of German owners who each raced it extensively through 1980. It was purchased by an American buyer who brought it back to the U.S. where it went through sev- eral owners and was restored to 1966 specs. It is presently in the hands of a Swiss owner. 5R209 is reportedly still in Switzer- land, and 5R097 is thought to have been wrecked in Switzerland and later rebodied but the histories of these cars are murky. 5R539 was something of a mystery car for a long time. As de- tailed in the SAAC registry, in 1966 the car was loaned by Shelby Ameri- can to Anita Taylor-Mathews and the Ring Free Oil Racing Team to race at Nassau in December of that year. After being returned to Shelby American it was sold to Ford of Belgium in 1967. The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 50 1968-1973: When 5R539 was a Notchback – Wolfgang Kohrn wolfgang68t5@freenet.de M 5R539 was originally loaned to the Ring Free Oil Racing Team and was sent to Nassau in December of 1966 to compete in the Nassau Speed Week. It was driven by Anita Taylor-Mathews [ above, left ] shown with Shelby American fabricator/mechanic Ron Sampson who accompanied the car. Taylor-Mathews is pictured [ above, right ] with her husband in Nassau.