Would Shelby eventually run Gurney Eagle heads?

[MAStuart]

Seeing that Ford told Shelby he was done with the Daytona Coupe. I was wondering if Shelby would have continued to run Daytona coupes, do you think he would have eventually run Gurney Eagle heads on them? Mark

[Historybuff]

From what I understand in the latest Donald Farr book on the Boss 302, the Gurney Weslake heads were tested on the 302 as a possible Trans Am configuration but Ford rejected running them. Though they were efficient, Ford might have had to offer them as an over-the-counter part to make them legal for Trans-Am and maybe had doubts that they could be mass produced. They might have been tested for the Tunnel Port 302 earlier but rejected for the same reason (in fact that Tunnel Port engine was never released in a production Mustang).

But that didn't stop Shelby from later using them on a Can Am cars (he owned a Lola and commissioned one of his own from Len Terry). The Daytona coupe's goose was cooked when Ford decided they wanted the GT40 to be the no. 1 priority in racing so I don't think Shelby ever entertained improving them beyond the 1965 racing trim and never thought of making them for the street until modern times with the replicas from South Africa.


If in your research you can find out why it was that Shelby didn't seem active at Gurney's AAR when he was an investor in it, let us forumites know. It would seem that Shelby stayed out of the limelight at AAR though he is reported to have owned a part of the firm until 1970.

[1ntCobra]

After a close contest with Ferrari in 1964, the plan was to race the 427 cobra in 1965 including a coupe, but when not enough 427 cobras were completed at the time of the FIA inspection, that plan fell apart.

However, with the Ferrari factory deciding to sort of sit out the GT class for 1965, I think Ford realized that the Daytona Coupes could just sort of show up and win the GT class and thus Alan Mann was hired to run the Daytonas and FIAs for 1965, while Shelby concentrated on the Prototype class with the GT-40s.

Perhaps for 1966, there was going to be some real competition in the GT class again and the Daytonas were not going to be competitive anymore?