Evan:
Why did Brian write the first letter that states there are no unacounted for leftover chassis? He wrote it because CS claimed to have these so called leftovers.
Doug and Evan:
Re-read the post from ERA535 that came from Road and Track. It is very apparent that CS did say he had leftover chassis. I don't know what would ever get you guys to admit that CS is a lying criminal. Even if it went to court and 12 of his peers found him guilty, you still wouldn't believe it. Go ahead and keep your heads buried in the sand luke an ostrich.
I as well as most other people do believe he did say it and then tried to play a word game when he got caught. Lets for the hell of it say he didn't say it. He definatly infered it.
Oh. by the way, I spent the $2.50 to get the original (not replica, ha ha) article from the LA Times. Was the best $2.50 I ever spent, the article makes it more clear than ever to me what happened. Go ahead and read it for yourselves and then you can tell all of us you still don't believe it.
The LA Times Article
Questions have been raised over Carroll Shelby's claim he's building 43 of his classic Cobras using original chassis. Shelby says he's the victim of a business feud. The Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext); Los Angeles, Calif.; Apr 15, 1993; PAUL DEAN;
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1993all Rights reserved)
Designer Carroll Shelby's year-long claim has been intriguing: He would finish what he started in 1965 and build the last of his elite Cobra sports cars on cobwebbed frames and parts he had hoarded for 27 years.
In recent months, his company has assembled nine of the treasured two-seaters-Cobra 427s descended from race cars that beat Ferrari for the 1964 world manufacturer's championship.
At least four have been sold-asking price: $500,000-as zero-mile, newly completed originals.
But are they?
Despite Shelby's statements of authenticity-widely quoted by automotive magazines and newspapers including The Times-engineers involved in his project say there are few items of original metal or equipment on the reissued 427SCs. The motors and transmissions are 1965 rebuilds; chassis, suspension, body and most other parts are newly manufactured.
And that, say some car specialists, makes these Cobra facsimiles worth little more than a dozen other replicars on the market, the best of which sell for only $65,000.
Other experts say that because the new cars have been touched by the master, they're worth much more-whatever a Shelby devotee is willing to pay. (A mint, 27-year-old 427SC with a documented racing history sold last year for $550,000. At a January auction, a less distinguished but original Cobra 427 street version brought $201,000.)
Regardless, several clouds have settled over Shelby's new cars:
* Forty-three chassis Shelby said had been in storage since 1965 were actually built in 1991 and 1992 by a Torrance company, McCluskey Ltd. A McCluskey engineer says all frames are precise copies of Cobra 427 chassis originally built for Shelby by AC Cars Ltd. of England, with McCluskey workers even duplicating the coarse welds and rough saw cuts of 1965 metal working.
* In February, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, responding to information requested by The Times, said it would examine issuance of duplicate 1965 titles to 43 Cobras, apparently the same cars that were built in 1991 and '92. Shelby claimed in signed applications to the DMV-under penalty of perjury-that he has owned the cars since 1965 and that the original titles had been lost.
Wednesday, a DMV spokesman said the matter is now being investigated by the Los Angeles field office of DMV's Investigations and Occupational Licensing Division.
In a series of recent interviews over three weeks, Shelby, 70, offered several explanations regarding the chassis before admitting they had been built in 1991 and 1992 by McCluskey.
In all interviews, Shelby has claimed he is a victim of a campaign by Brian Angliss, head of AC Cars of England, who is building Cobra replicas-the Autokraft Mk IV. He is feuding with Shelby over design and manufacturing origins of the Cobra.
Shelby says Angliss wants to enhance sales by bad-mouthing Shelby's version. "He knows that if I build cars, they (customers) will buy from me and that will put him out of business," Shelby says.
Angliss, Shelby adds, is in the car business for nothing but personal gain. Shelby, a 1990 recipient of a heart transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, says he has pledged profits from his new cars to the Shelby Heart Fund administered through the center.
He claims that he has made no secret of McCluskey's work in recreating the chassis.
But Csaba Csere, technical director of Car and Driver magazine, recalls Shelby's broad hints that the chassis were left from 1965: "Absolutely, that was definitely the impression. He basically said that in so many words."
Most other writers contacted by The Times agreed. Michael Jordan of Automobile magazine, however, reported last August that McCluskey would "scratch-build Cobra 427 S/C facsimiles." But, Jordan says he didn't question Shelby directly about the chassis' age: "I knew there was no way I was going to get a straight answer."
Shelby, however, continues to maintain that he hasn't misled anyone: "If I said they were 1965 chassis or if I inferred it, it meant that they were built in the '60s and I was using '65 engines which means that they are '65 cars if I so choose to say so."
Those 43 chassis-the steel frame supporting the engine, transmission and body of a car-remain the key to the controversy.
Chassis for all three models of the 1,100 original Cobras-also their bodies, suspension, wheels, seats and interiors-were built by AC Cars in partnership with Shelby American Inc. and Ford Motor Co. between 1962-70. The partially completed vehicles were shipped to Southern California to be fitted with Ford V-8 engines and transmissions.
As part of the certification process for racing the 400-plus horsepower Cobra 427 model, AC and Shelby-American assigned that series a block of 100 numbers.
But not all 100 cars were built. According to AC's 1965 records, the company shipped only 55 Cobra 427 chassis to the U.S.
That left more than 40 Cobra 427s and their chassis numbers apparently unborn and in limbo.
Angliss, 48, who assumed control of AC in 1986, says he well remembers one 1987 discussion about the Cobra numbers with Shelby, a former Texas race driver and chili millionaire.
He says that Shelby asked him to remanufacture a batch of Cobra chassis and ship them into the United States labeled as "washing machine parts." Angliss says Shelby told him he intended to leave the chassis to rust in the rain "then make a big announcement that he (Shelby) had stored these original and authentic AC Car's chassis since 1965."
Angliss says he declined the order.
Shelby, who has homes and businesses in Los Angeles, Texas and Mexico, denies most of Angliss' claims: "I asked him if he wanted to build the cars, pure and simple, if he wanted to rebuild the pieces I had and to build the cars."
There was no need to have them shipped as washing machine parts, he says, nor leave them outdoors to rust, because "it is perfectly legal for me to build a new car today and register it and sell it as a '65."
Don Landy, president of the Texas-based Shelby American Management, says that he corresponded with Angliss in the late '80s and that the British businessman agreed to help rebuild Cobra 427s. (Angliss said he was only willing to build 25 Special Edition cars for the Cobra's 25th anniversary, and he provided copies of 1987 letters detailing arrangements).
Initial plans were exchanged, Landy recalls, before Angliss said he was too busy for the project. Landy says he later told Angliss that Shelby American would make the cars "and at that point he went totally orbital, and from the point forward there has been nothing but threats."
Angliss believes AC Cars is the Cobra's manufacturer of record, and, as AC has either restored or reclaimed the original Cobra tooling, his replicas must be considered more authentic than a Shelby remake.
Shelby contends that he conceived the Cobra, arranged financing and design with Ford and AC Cars, formed Shelby American Inc. to complete the Cobra, marketed and raced the car and clearly was and is manufacturer of record.
Michael McCluskey, who has restored more than 40 authentic Cobras since 1970, says he met with Shelby in 1989 to discuss building 43 chassis and several complete cars.
The first eight chassis, he says, included pieces of "about 30 old frame rails" supplied by Shelby.
The old frames were numbered, but "in very poor condition . . . not as nice as those made in England," he says. So McCluskey decided to build from scratch.
McCluskey says that Shelby provided the final 13 chassis numbers attached to frame brackets. The brackets and old chassis, he adds, showed no signs of ever having been attached to bodies, engines or suspensions.
McCluskey says he did not respond to misleading articles because "he (Shelby) pretty much said `I'll handle any questions from the magazines.' If you dealt with Shelby, he makes you want to keep quiet out of respect for who he is."
A former executive with a Shelby company-who requested anonymity-says that the plan was always to sell and register the cars as 1965 vehicles: "He (Shelby) said: `That (1965 claim) will stimulate sales of the cars . . . and be enough to keep me (Shelby) for the rest of my life.' Also, he couldn't afford to build them as new cars because they would have to comply to 1992 . . . safety laws."
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