BORN TO RACE: 1966 Shelby Group II Mustang Built For Legendary Driver Ken Miles

Published by unbiased automotive journalist Steve Statham

Just one of the saddest elements when a existence of achievement is reduce brief is considering what could have been. That issue has surrounded the lifetime of racing driver Ken Miles for decades. There’s no answer to this kind of musings, of class. What is still left for the people today who understood and loved him, and the racing supporters who adopted his job, is a peaceful appreciation for what he did accomplish — and that was a lot.

Miles was the winner of numerous sports activities automobile races in the 1950s and received the 1961 United States Automobile Club (USAC) Highway Racing Championship. He was a Shelby-American workforce driver and main examination driver in the 1960s. He received the 24 Hrs of Daytona, the 12 Hrs of Sebring and the 1966 24 Hrs of Le Mans in actuality, if not formally. These accomplishments positioned him at the best of his activity, and Miles has acquired a effectively-deserved reintroduction to a youthful technology of racing lovers thanks to the 2019 film “Ford v Ferrari.”

This 1966 Shelby Group II Mustang is yet another chapter in the “what may have been” tale of Ken Miles, and it will be provided with No Reserve at the Barrett-Jackson 2023 Scottsdale Auction. According to the Shelby American Auto Club (SAAC), Shelby American Globe Registry and Carroll Shelby himself, which is documented in the Distinctive Collector’s Edition of Mustang Regular January 1995 journal, this Mustang was crafted for Ken Miles to race. Tragically, Miles died in a crash although tests the Ford J-car or truck, the upcoming evolution in the GT40 plan, at Riverside International Raceway on August 17, 1966. He would hardly ever have the likelihood to push the Mustang that was in the Shelby pipeline particularly for him to race.

It is interesting to think about what Miles could have completed behind the wheel of this auto. The Team II Mustangs ended up developed generally to race in the recently created Sports activities Car or truck Club of America (SCCA) Trans-American Sedan Championship. Ford was intrigued in the Manufacturers’ Championship the new sequence made available and approached Shelby American about developing Mustangs to race in the Trans Am’s Above 2-Liter class. Shelby designed 16 notchback 1966 Group II Mustangs, and this auto is the well-identified 12th auto from that batch.

The Team II cars and trucks had been designed primarily working with the GT350 R-Design blueprint, though there are discrepancies between the two. Though modified to racing specs by Shelby, the autos carried Ford serial figures. The Mustangs were constructed to conform to FIA Group II procedures, so compared with the Shelby GT350 R-Models, they had been demanded to preserve the metal hood with out a scoop, all four seats in put and factory glass home windows, amongst other facts.

Even though we can ponder what Miles might have carried out with the auto, we don’t have to visualize the racing background of the Mustang by itself. It was raced as intended and has a prolonged checklist of achievements to its credit history. Its to start with owner was driver John McComb, who competed thoroughly in SCCA gatherings. He drove the auto to the SCCA A/Sedan Midwest Division Championship in 1966. McComb’s victory at the Eco-friendly Valley, Texas, Trans-Am race (with co-driver Brad Brooker) aided Ford safe the Manufacturers’ Championship in its course in the to start with calendar year of the Trans-Am collection. McComb bought the automobile in 1967, but it continued to be raced into the early 1970s.

In 2014, this Team II Mustang was sent to Legendary Motorcar in Halton Hills, Ontario, for a complete concours restoration. It was disassembled and stripped to bare metallic, restored to right Shelby specs and refinished in its first manufacturing unit Wimbledon White paint with blue Le Mans stripes. It has the number 41 painted on the hood, trunk lid and doors, a range that McComb employed to show the SCCA’s Location 4, and his To start with Position end therein.

The car is run by an period-proper Shelby American racing 289 Hello-Po V8 motor. It has been outfitted with the proper Hi-Po heads, Tri-Y headers, aluminum hi-rise consumption manifold #S2MS-9424-A, Holley 715 cfm carburetor #S2MS-3510-A, metal valve covers with specially fabricated breathers and 7.5-quart Cobra finned aluminum oil pan. The motor is teamed with an era-appropriate BorgWarner T10 shut-ratio 4-speed handbook transmission with a make date of July 27, 1965. The power is transferred to a Ford 9-inch Detroit Locker rear finish with 3.89 gears.

The interior is outfitted with a Shelby-proper 4-issue roll bar, 3-inch competition lap belts, 16-inch 3-spoke steering wheel and six Carroll Shelby gauges. The suspension and brakes are legitimate interval Shelby components, with a 19.1 fast steering box, 1-inch sway bar, override traction bars, KONI shocks, 11.3-inch entrance disc brakes and 10&#2152.5-inch broad rear drum brakes. The motor vehicle sits on the accurate 15&#2157-inch American Racing magnesium wheels that present some patina, with wheels wrapped with suitable-model Firestone Indy 9.20&#21515-inch tires.

This Team II Shelby Mustang is a rolling historical past lesson and a considerable portion of equally Shelby and Ford Motor Company’s racing legacies. As these, it has been signed by Carroll Shelby, John McComb, Shelby GT350 Project Engineer Chuck Cantwell and Shelby mechanic Terry Doty. This Shelby was also showcased on the cover and within Sporting activities Auto Graphic December 1966 journal which was signed by John McComb. This magazine together with comprehensive documentation is involved with the sale.

Appear January in Scottsdale, there will be two styles of Shelby admirers in the viewers — all those who bid, and people who wonder what could possibly have been. Sign up to bid to see this storied motor vehicle cross the block at the Barrett-Jackson 2023 Scottsdale Auction, January 21-29.