[427sharpe]

The 289 comp and GT350 R pans were hand made in the Shelby race shop. None of the comp cars ever came with an aluminum pan. The Aviad is an excellent substitute. In the Daytona book, Pete Brock mentions that the pans were a method of inclusion into the race shop as a brotherhood as opposed to an employee. With a new fabricator making one to be examined by other techs to see if it passed muster....and they did not take kindly to a failing grade. The aluminum pans were dismissed outright due to their 'production' status. Most of the comp cars had a dedicated crew for the season, and that crew made the pans so all have subtle differences and there is no 'exact' style to be found. Usually, they started life as a stock pan, with an inverted T welded to the bottom to increase capacity and internal baffling to control movement. This I have gleaned from numerous quiz sessions at the Nationals, including talks with Brock and Popov-Dadiani who made many pans for his FIA himself. See the Shelby-American #69.