Composed by independent automotive journalist Steve Statham
2023 SCOTTSDALE AUCTION – 1966 SHELBY Team II MUSTANG – Designed FOR KEN MILES – NO RESERVE
One of the saddest areas when a existence of achievement is slice quick is thinking about what may have been. That question has surrounded the everyday living of racing driver Ken Miles for many years. There’s no reply to this sort of musings, of system. What is still left for the people today who realized and cherished him, and the racing followers who adopted his job, is a quiet appreciation for what he did complete — and that was a good deal.
Miles was the winner of plenty of sports car or truck races in the 1950s and won the 1961 United States Vehicle Club (USAC) Road Racing Championship. He was a Shelby-American workforce driver and chief exam driver in the 1960s. He gained the 24 Hrs of Daytona, the 12 Hrs of Sebring and the 1966 24 Hrs of Le Mans in actuality, if not formally. These achievements placed him at the top of his sport, and Miles has obtained a very well-deserved reintroduction to a younger technology of racing enthusiasts many thanks to the 2019 motion picture “Ford v Ferrari.”
This 1966 Shelby Team II Mustang is one more chapter in the “what may have been” story of Ken Miles, and it will be presented with No Reserve at the Barrett-Jackson 2023 Scottsdale Auction. In accordance to the Shelby American Auto Club (SAAC), Shelby American Environment Registry and Carroll Shelby himself, which is documented in the Particular Collector’s Version of Mustang Month-to-month January 1995 magazine, this Mustang was designed for Ken Miles to race. Tragically, Miles died in a crash though screening the Ford J-vehicle, the future evolution in the GT40 plan, at Riverside Worldwide Raceway on August 17, 1966. He would never have the opportunity to push the Mustang that was in the Shelby pipeline exclusively for him to race.
It is intriguing to contemplate what Miles could have attained behind the wheel of this auto. The Team II Mustangs were constructed primarily to race in the freshly established Athletics Auto Club of The usa (SCCA) Trans-American Sedan Championship. Ford was intrigued in the Manufacturers’ Championship the new sequence available and approached Shelby American about developing Mustangs to race in the Trans Am’s More than 2-Liter course. Shelby crafted 16 notchback 1966 Group II Mustangs, and this car is the effectively-identified 12th car or truck from that batch.
The Group II automobiles have been developed basically applying the GT350 R-Product blueprint, even though there are dissimilarities between the two. When modified to racing requirements by Shelby, the cars carried Ford serial figures. The Mustangs were being designed to conform to FIA Group II principles, so not like the Shelby GT350 R-Designs, they were being essential to sustain the metal hood with no a scoop, all 4 seats in put and factory glass home windows, among the other facts.
Whilst we can ponder what Miles may possibly have completed with the auto, we really do not have to think about the racing history of the Mustang itself. It was raced as supposed and has a lengthy list of achievements to its credit history. Its first owner was driver John McComb, who competed thoroughly in SCCA occasions. He drove the car or truck 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) helped Ford secure the Manufacturers’ Championship in its course in the to start with 12 months of the Trans-Am sequence. McComb sold the automobile in 1967, but it ongoing to be raced into the early 1970s.
In 2014, this Team II Mustang was sent to Famous Motorcar in Halton Hills, Ontario, for a complete concours restoration. It was disassembled and stripped to bare metal, restored to appropriate Shelby specifications and refinished in its authentic factory Wimbledon White paint with blue Le Mans stripes. It has the amount 41 painted on the hood, trunk lid and doors, a variety that McComb employed to suggest the SCCA’s Location 4, and his First Place end therein.
The vehicle is driven by an era-right Shelby American racing 289 Hi-Po V8 engine. It has been outfitted with the suitable Hello-Po heads, Tri-Y headers, aluminum hi-increase intake manifold #S2MS-9424-A, Holley 715 cfm carburetor #S2MS-3510-A, metal valve addresses with specifically fabricated breathers and 7.5-quart Cobra finned aluminum oil pan. The motor is teamed with an era-appropriate BorgWarner T10 near-ratio 4-speed guide transmission with a establish day of July 27, 1965. The electric power is transferred to a Ford 9-inch Detroit Locker rear close with 3.89 gears.
The inside is outfitted with a Shelby-proper 4-place roll bar, 3-inch levels of competition lap belts, 16-inch 3-spoke steering wheel and 6 Carroll Shelby gauges. The suspension and brakes are accurate time period Shelby hardware, with a 19.1 speedy steering box, 1-inch sway bar, override traction bars, KONI shocks, 11.3-inch entrance disc brakes and 10ࡨ.5-inch wide rear drum brakes. The auto sits on the suitable 15࡭-inch American Racing magnesium wheels that exhibit some patina, with wheels wrapped with proper-style Firestone Indy 9.20吋-inch tires.
This Team II Shelby Mustang is a rolling heritage lesson and a substantial section of both equally Shelby and Ford Motor Company’s racing legacies. As this sort of, it has been signed by Carroll Shelby, John McComb, Shelby GT350 Project Engineer Chuck Cantwell and Shelby mechanic Terry Doty. This Shelby was also featured on the deal with and inside Athletics Motor vehicle Graphic December 1966 magazine which was signed by John McComb. This journal alongside with intensive documentation is integrated with the sale.
Arrive January in Scottsdale, there will be two forms of Shelby followers in the audience — all those who bid, and all those who ponder what might have been. Register to bid to see this storied auto cross the block at the Barrett-Jackson 2023 Scottsdale Auction, January 21-29.
