Posts by FoMoCo Dearborn_old

Everyone just calls me Bill,

These modifications would have been performed after it left Ford. When Shelby started building it's racers for Ford, they would order small quantities. They would do a complete tear down of the car, and rebuild it to FIA or SCCA standards at the time. Individual race teams could also order cars and send them to shelby on their own dime.

I can't say with 100% certainty that this car was a racer, but some of the present day indicators do point that way. What I mostly hear of is some past owner had a new set of tools and a garage, and the next thing you know, you have a shelby clone. I do think it would somwhat difficult to clone or fake a Group I or II racer though. There isn't really a lot of information available about them. Sure, if you were diligent enough you could find enough information to make some educated decisions, but there would still be many unknowns about how the cars originally left Shelby.

I still say the best thing would be to contact Shelby and get thier input. They would know original hole diameters and placement.

Edited by - FoMoCo Dearborn on 02/24/2011 09:17:58

Thanks for the replies! I found where to check for the personal messages, but it says I have none. I must not have done something correctly. It's going to be nice to talk to car people again. It's been years since I sat in a Mustang though. I remember the K cars well though. Though I never owned one, I never passed up the chance to take one out. Listening to the hard tap of the lifters, that odd miss of the number 3 cylinder, and especially that loud take off sound of the secondaries popping open, and deafening sound of that exhaust as we reached 6000RPM and raced it on through to 7+. That was just driving them off the assembly line.

There was a fit mechanic on the number 2 line, and as the fenders would go on, he would sometimes yell out "K Car" and the others would around would reply "K car". It was a special time when car making was exciting. Today it's all about electronic gadgets and gas mileage. They make 500HP engines, and limit them to 5000RPM or 120MPH, and call that a muscle car? Give me a carburetor anyday!

Every couple of months huh? The phone works both ways.

So, I'm finally officially a member now, and can start posting. So, I'll try and cover a couple of things on this Build Sheet mess real quick.

You didn't tell me all this stuff when we talked. Your car was made less that 2 months into the ramp up of the 66 model year, so it is a very early 66. It wouldn't surprise me if you had quite a few left over 65 specific parts.

The second "D" shaped hole on the driver side under dash, is from the 65 emergency flasher relocation. It should just to the left of the choke cable.

The "Two holes forward of the gas tank on the trunk floor (punched 3/8" in diameter)" along with a few other things said (UCA holes, heater holes) and the lag date on the build sheet, really made me think. The UCA holes are just that, holes used to relocate the upper control arm, improve camber and lower the center of gravity of the front of the car. The two holes next to the heater motor hole sound like battery relocation holes (to put it in the trunk), the the 2 hole in front of the gas tank sound like a fuel tank shield that tied into the roll cage. These were all items found on some group 1 and all group 2 racers. The problem is the C-4 wasn't, and Shelby didn't order up the Group racers until December 65.

I know some individual racing teams did order K cars and have them reworked at Shelby. Your best bet would be to contact them and have them look up the VIN and see if they ever did work on the car, you could possibly have a vintage racer. But the C-4 still sticks in my head. Unless it was running some smaller circuit tracks, I wouldn't think a race team would differ from the 4-speed. But, those are just my thoughts.

Edited by - FoMoCo Dearborn on 02/22/2011 10:17:05

My son told me about this website and said I should join up. My name is Bill Forsythe and I worked for Ford in Dearborn, Detroit and Lansing, MI from 1965 to 1988. I graduated from the University of Michigan in the Spring of 65 and was working for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn in June.

I worked on the Mustang, Comet and Fairlane Engineering Team, and was part part of the safety division.

I hope that with what I think I remember about these cars (there wasn't a whole lot of them that came through), I can answer some questions, and probably learn a lot myself.

Thanks for having me,

Bill