[DeTomaso] How did they do that, GT-40 Proto-type sold for two million and change, ok no Pantera content

[John Taphorn]

Gee Mike

You're like the Dan Jones of GT40s!

JT
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <MikeLDrew at aol.com>
To: <rimov at charter.net>; <deTomaso at realbig.com>
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] How did they do that,GT-40 Proto-type sold for two 
million and change,ok no Pantera content


>
> In a message dated 3/16/09 18 19 44, rimov at charter.net writes:
>
>
>> The Million dollar auction plays again 4/20 on channel 775 HD. Really 
>> gotta
>> catch it to see some of the cars and of course the 1965 GT-40 prototype 
>> with
>> 289 with reversed intake/exhaust set up.
>>
>
> That's not a 289--it's a quad-cam 255-inch Indycar engine.
>
> I just realized, that's a repeat of an auction from way back in 2005. 
> The
> car in question is GT/103, the earliest GT40 still in existence (the first 
> two
> were wrecked).   It had a short and mostly unsuccessful racing career 
> early on
> (initially powered by an aluminum 255 pushrod Indy motor, it failed to 
> finish
> all the races it was entered in 1964, due to gearbox or suspension 
> failures),
> but then it became a Shelby team car.   The aluminum dry-sump 255 was 
> yanked
> and replaced with a Cobra-fied wet sump 289 (saving some 60 pounds in the
> process), and Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby drove it to the very first GT40 
> victory, at
> the 24 Hours of Daytona in '65.
>
> It had a short but decent professional career after that, and at the end 
> of
> the season it was sold to a fellow named Bill Wonder, who was a flight 
> engineer
> for American Airlines.   He modified the body to fit wider wheels, 
> repainted
> it from its blue and white Shelby colors into a rather lurid purple, and
> continued to race it in SCCA and later vintage races well into the 1980s. 
> At the
> time of his selling it in 2004, his was the longest continual ownership of 
> a
> GT40.
>
> At some point long after he stopped racing it competitively, just for 
> giggles
> he'd replaced the 289 with a Ford quad-cam Indycar engine (which had the 
> same
> block architecture as the pushrod Indycar engine it originally raced with,
> but it used gear-driven dual overhead cams instead of pushrods), and 
> configured
> it with the wild Indycar intake/exhaust setup.
>
> He finally sold the car to Symbolic Motor Cars in the San Diego area in 
> 2004,
> and they put it up for sale asking $3,000,000, with no takers.
>
> After awhile, it was repainted back into Shelby colors and sold at the
> auction in 2005.   It was purchased by incredible Shelby fanatic Larry 
> Miller, who
> just died a few weeks ago, and was buried in a coffin painted Shelby blue 
> with
> white stripes!   Photo here:
>
> http://www.saac.com/images/stories/articles/news/breaking/miller/thumbnails/th
> umb_9623.jpg
>
> He was a super-successful car dealer who owned over a hundred dealerships,
> plus the Utah Jazz NBA team, and a whole bunch of Cobras, Shelbys, and 
> GT40s,
> which he kept in two museums, one being at his private racetrack he built
> outside Salt Lake City (Miller Motorsports Park).   I just visited that 
> museum a few
> weeks ago, and although he had three of his GT40s there, this one is part 
> of
> the other museum he was a partner in, the awesome Shelby Museum in 
> Boulder,
> CO.   (I visited that one with POCA member and forum lurker Pete Kittridge 
> back
> in 2003, when one of my C-5 loadmasters fell and broke his leg loading 
> cargo
> at Buckley AFB, outside Denver.   The poor guy wasn't even on his second 
> bounce
> before I had my POCA registry and cell phone in hand....)
>
> Photos of the car (and the crazy, has-no-business-being-in-a-GT40 Indycar
> engine) here:
>
> http://shelbyamericancollection.org/collection/p103.shtml
>
> Mike (As much of a GT40 dork as he is a Pantera dork!)
>
>
> **************
> Feeling
> the pinch at the grocery store?  Make dinner for $10 or less.
> (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001)
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