The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

We know from the LAX Back Lot photo discussed earlier that the upper digits on that paper are the last 6 dig- its of the Ford VIN, and the lower dig- its on that paper are the Shelby VIN – with some of the digits not visible be- cause the paper is curled back from the windshield on the left and right. If that’s “…508…” on the lower part of that paper then that car has to be one of these: • 5S508 – it can’t be 5S508 because we’ve proven it’s a 1966 GT350. • 6S508 – it can’t be 6S508 because we’ve proven it’s a 1966 GT350 carry- over and there were only 252 of those. • 6S1508 – again, it’s a carryover, so it can’t be 6S1508 • 6S508x – it can’t be 6S508x because there weren’t that many 1966 GT350s produced. So it can NOT be “…508…” on the lower part of that paper. [ Note: The misinterpretation of those digits is probably why Mustang & Fords mag- azine mislabeled that photo. Remem- ber how this all got started? ] If it’s not “…508…”, then it must be “…S08…”. Let’s see if “…S08…” will match with the other evidence in that photo. • 6S08 (with no more digits) – that cannot be correct because all 1965-66 Shelby VINs had either three or four numeric digits following the “S.” • 6S08xx – that can’t be correct be- cause of the Shelby VIN designation scheme. Any time the “S” is followed by a zero, that indicates a 3-digit num- ber. And 08xx is a 4-digit number. • 6S08x – this is it. This is the only in- terpretation of the digits on the lower part of that paper that is actually pos- sible. And cars in that range would be carryovers – matching all the other ev- idence in that photo. We’ve come a long way. First we proved that front car can’t be a 1965 GT350 as captioned in that magazine article. Then we proved it’s one of 252 carryovers. Now we know that first car is one of ten cars between 6S080 and 6S089. Is there any way to double-check that conclusion, and maybe narrow that down even further? Yes, there is. We know from the LAX Back Lot photo that the numbers on the top of that paper represent some part of the Ford VIN of this car. So this car must have 42 somewhere in its Ford VIN. I checked with Howard Pardee about that, and without revealing the exact Ford VINs (which he will not do) there are four cars in the 6S080 - 6S089 range that have “42” in their Ford se- rial numbers – 081, 085, 087 and 089. Conclusions: when you combine all those observations, the logical conclu- sions are that: • The cars in the Assembly Line photo are all 1966 GT350s. Probably all car- ryovers. • The front car in that photo can NOT be 5S508 as the magazine photo cap- tion indicates. • That front car is one of these four – 6S081, 6S085, 6S087 or 6S089. Howard Pardee checked the Ford number of 5S508 and it does not have “42” anywhere in its Ford VIN. Which quadruple confirms that the car in the front of the Assembly Line photo can NOT be 5S508. Pardee also checked the R-Models because one of them might be found on the assembly line without any rear vent louvers or in some other odd state of disassembly. There are no R-Models with 42 in their serial numbers. So the car in the front of the Assembly Line photo can NOT be an R-Model (if any- one was wondering about that.) It was previously observed that one more digit on the top of that wind- shield paper might be recognizable. There might be a 9 in front of that 42 – making the partial Ford VIN of this car 942. So I went back to Howard and asked about that. He replied that all the results noted above are same whether he uses “42” or “942” in his Ford VIN search. So those conclusions hold up either way. Full Disclosure: I own carryover car 6S087. When I first realized that my research lead to a one-in-four chance that the car in that picture is mine, I started to doubt my own work. Could it be a self-fulfilling prophesy? So I sent this to several brutally hon- est friends to be double- and triple- checked. They assure me that these observations and conclusions are all accurate, and no owner bias has slipped into this explanation. Submit- ted for your consideration. The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 74 Enlargement of the serial numbers taped to the windshield of the lead car in the as- sembly line photo. 6S087