The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

time brought her notoriety and she be- came famous in Germany for it. Born in East Germany, she went through the “Wall” quite early and her interest in racing and photography led her into the pits at the most important race tracks in Europe over the following decades. After meeting John Ward, an engineer on Dan Gurney’s Indy car race team, she emigrated to California and finally married him. She turned 80 in April of 2021. I was the first one to ask her for Shelby/Mustang racing pictures. From the ‘90s on, I visited a local garage that specialized in American Fords. One of the owners was a former parts manager from Ford Regehr, a local U.S. Ford dealer, where my father had his 1971 Mach1 serviced. They had converted it for use on German roads. This dealer also serviced my fa- ther’s friend’s ‘70 Mach 1 Cobra Jet Mustang. Other Ford performance cars were at the dealership during our regular visits back then, including DeTomaso Panteras. In 1994 I asked the son, Ulfert Stuck, if they had any documentation left over from that period. He showed me a number of binders pertaining to Mustangs (in Germany they were sold as T-5 models) including export-re- lated information including parts lists, original sales documentation, etc. Mr. Stuck also mentioned, during our dis- cussion, that in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s his father (Ulrich) had assisted with close friends on their race cars and provided them with Ford US parts they needed for racing. They were serving many Ford dealers through the 1990s and 2000s. He mentioned that three friends were able to buy the car from Dubois in 1969. Rolf Kienen (a well-known furniture dealer), Ernst Jüntgen (a body shop owner) and Wolfgang Diet- rich (an executive at Kleber tires). Kienen and Dietrich bought the car, each paying half. They were all in- volved in the Rhein-Ruhr Racing team and two of them still are today. My questions triggered them to re- research as to where this car might have ended up. At my next visit they were able to show me copies of docu- mentation received from Rolf Kienen: customs papers and the actual race log book. I was stunned to see SFM5R539 listed there. At my request, they im- mediately called Ernst Jüntgen for ad- ditional information and discovered that the car had definitely been dis- carded, sent to a wrecking yard in the late ‘80s since it was taking up space at their body shop that was desper- ately needed. Of course I was disap- pointed, but they went to the wrecking yard, just to check, and found it had been gone since the early ‘90s. I met Rolf Kienen, himself, at the summer historic racing event at the Nürburgring the next year. He was en- gaged with some friends – of course with a Mustang – and we sat down during the practice session on Friday and discussed what he remembered. He told me that, indeed, they had bought this car from Claude Dubois and they enjoyed racing it for some years, sharing the driving as they often did with their BMW in those days. He said they were also happy to let other drivers race their cars. They just enjoyed the car for week- end fun and loved the atmosphere at racing events. He recalled that just for The SHELBY AMERICAN In 1967 following LeMans, Dubois removed the driveline from 5R539 and installed it in this ‘66 notchback in order to enter it in the 24-hour Spa event in August. After Spa the driveline went back into 5R539, which was now a notchback. This work cost Dubois a small fortune for which he was not reimbursed by Ford. 5R539 as a notchback, was raced twice by Dubois’ racing team in 1968 at Spa. The car was sold the following year to three German racers, one being the director of Kleber racing tires. Summer 2022 53 5R539 at Zolder, Belgium.