The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

and no positive publicity for either Dubois or the car. I managed to get a few spy shots of the car on the Auto- bahn as it was returning from the track. After the test session it simply disappeared and was not seen for a decade. Then, in 2018, the car ap- peared again when it was shown in Brussels Autoworld at a special show, The Belgians at LeMans. A French friend told me the name of the owner, but I could find no online information about him, other than he was a collector of a variety of cars, most of which he had found in wreck- ing yards. The rumor was that he had found the original fastback roof and other items used them to rebuild the car to the way it was raced at LeMans in 1967. I couldn’t help wondering if he had found the original chassis at the wrecking yard in the late ‘80s? No details about this car have been confirmed yet. The car’s Ford VIN has not yet been reported to or verified by SAAC for authentication. You would think if this was the original car, this would have been the very first thing that the owner would do. The car has yet to even be authenticated by an in- dependent party, so questions will cer- tainly remain until the car has been throughly examined. Should it come up for sale, the owner will face some tough questions regarding the car and sharing details which would prove it to be legitimate. In putting together the history of the car from automotive publications and race reports, 5R539 continued to be raced in 1967, with races in Zolder (still as fastback), in the Ardennes, and then at Spa in 1968 (as a notch- back). In 1968 the FIA rules specified that the Mustang could not compete in the fastback body style. Only notch- backs (coupes) were legal. Dubois’ so- lution was to cut 5R539’s fastback roof off and replace it with the roof from a notchback. This made the car legal in FIA competition but very difficult to track its history because anybody searching for the car without knowing it had been converted to a notchback would be looking for a fastback with an R-Model serial number. The fact that it was no longer a fastback was no secret – but people looking for the car just didn’t know enough to ask the right questions. I repeatedly asked Claude Dubois if the German car could be 5R539. He repeatedly said, “ I remember that I sold it to three Germans, one of them a guy from Kleber tires .” Asked if he was able to trace the car from 1969 when it went to Germany back to Bel- gium in 2004 when he was reunited with the car, he stated twice, “ I don’t know. ” He only mentioned that he re- called that someone bought the roof and Plexiglas rear window from his shop. Still, officially he confirmed be- fore 2004 that he identified the alleged car as being “his car.” Whatever that means. With his passing in February of 2022, it’s not likely that question will ever be definitively answered. So, the bottom line, presently, is that an unverified fastback exists in Belgium. It is not known if this is the fastback that Claude Dubois raced at LeMans in 1967, if it was made into a notchback before being raced in 1968 at Spa, and subsequently sold to three German racers who used the car infor- mally as a track car. Serial number verification would probably solve this problem, but no one has yet provided SAAC’s registrar proof of 5R539’s Ford VIN. That raises eyebrows. The SHELBY AMERICAN Brussels Autoworld’s Belgians at LeMans show. A freshly-restored fastback supposedly carrying the serial number 5R539 was purported to be the 1967 Claude Dubois R-Model. But the car’s owner, Patrick van Coppenolle, of Belgium, has yet to present the car’s Ford and Shelby VINs to SAAC for authentication. After the show the car again simply disappeared. Summer 2022 55 Spotted on the Autobahn returning from the 2004 LeMans Classic