1967 Company, PR and Engineering Cars

[Brian Styles]

By analyzing the attributes of 1967 G.T. company cars and engineering vehicles listed on original Shelby American documents, including the March 31, 1967 Vehicle Tax Register, the July 31, 1967 Fixed Asset Ledger and volume 48 (page 54) of The Shelby American, we were able to cross-reference and populate additional information about the company cars, including the corresponding California Asset Number (Decals on Windshield). All the handwritten notes refer to the company cars by this Number (which is not the VIN), including the Ionia Move Planning documents (Jobs Yet to be Completed in California, Disposal of Prototypes and Vehicles Remaining in California). Ionia Inventory Numbers for a few cars were also found on the 1969 Shelby Automotive Engineering Car List document. The SAAC Shelby 2011 World Registry also provided additional facts.

The ultimate goal of this exercise would be to create a comprehensive cross-reference of each company car by both VIN and Asset Number. 

Table:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TpVk23GGlsREuGHcHWic71b_K8nhvEzmJobNym39ZLo/edit?usp=sharing

Observations: 

The decal numbers are NOT chronological to the car's VIN nor to the car's completion date(s). This leads us to believe that the asset numbers weren't assigned as each car entered company car duty, but rather all (or almost all) numbers were assigned at once -- on a particular date, such as when FoMoCo acquired Shelby American and/or formed the new Shelby Automotive Co. and/or performed a physical inventory of the assets (company cars and completed retail cars) for accounting purposes...

In the meantime, when looking at the list:

CC#   VIN#   FSJ Built  SAI Comp*    Notes/Observation                      

060   ????   ????????   ????????     Referenced in a letter from ACSCO. Might be #0121

061   0131   11/08/66   12/07/66     Engineering - Coupe. Lowest company car number found on any SAI document

062   0139   11/21/66   12/07/66     Engineering - Convertible

064   0463   01/03/67   02/02/67     HOR / Engineering - AC Cooling Tests

065   0522   01/04/67   01/30/67     HOR / Engineering - first GT350 4-speed AC car ordered

066   0544   01/11/67   02/09/67     Goodyear Tire tests - 427 Lightweight Engine

073   2381   05/05/67   06/10/67     HOR / Engineering car

074   2484   05/12/67   07/21/67     Of those found, this is the latest SJ and SAI built car (but not the highest CC number)

105   0578   01/12/67   02/16/67     Company Car - Lew Spencer

115   1338   01/30/67   04/13/67     Highest company car number found (though not the latest SAI completion date)

Our theory is that FoMoCo took over SAI in the spring of 1967, circa May 1, 1967. It is possible that the window decals were assigned to the company cars (fixed assets) at or about the same time as the "Z" stamps started getting added to the VIN plates of retail units (inventory).

It's also worth noting that the font used for the numbers on the windshield asset number decals appears to be the same as that used on the Continuation Invoices. It's very similar to Futura.

Updates:

2019-05-02 - #0544, one of three factory 427-equipped cars, has been identified as company car '066' thanks to the detective work of Kieth, Anthony, and Rich. 

2020-10-25 - #0578 is our best guess on Company Car 105 - details below in this thread.

[Brian Styles]

Just identified car #1338 as California Company Car Number 115 (A/K/A "Parking Lot Decal"). One more piece of the puzzle now in place!

Not only does the car still wear a "Shelby American 115" decal in the lower right (passenger) of the windshield -- it teaches us that 2" square decals were affixed to BOTH sides of the front windshield.

Oh and check out that front grill, high-beam mounting and those Aluminium "baffles" atop the grille. Perhaps a DIY front-end accident repair job or perhaps remnants of this car's "Frankenwork" while a company car at SAI? Russ Grimm did seem to have something to do with Emissions testing according to a Jan-1969 Shelby Automotive (Ionia) document.

[Brian Styles]

Photos of Shelby American company car window decals 073 from car #2381 and 107 from Car #0808. 

073, 107 and 115 are the only surviving window decals that I know about. Does anyone else know of any others?

[Brian Styles]

The only coupe, nicknamed "Little Red," was assigned VIN sequence 0131 and SAI Company Car (Asset) # 061.

Once you know what you're looking for, the square Company Car (Asset) decals are notably visible in both lower corners of the windshield.

[Brian Styles]

You may notice that the 427-powered #0544, a company car, doesn't show the window decals during the Goodyear high-speed tire tests. 

According to Dave Mathews, 1967 Registrar, cars #0544 and #0463 were shipped to the Texas test track on March 20th, 1967 and were shipped back to California on March 28th, 1967. #0544 was used to test Goodyear's new Thunderbolt tires and #0463 was used performing the official G.T. 500 air-conditioning tests. Rich Plescia has shared that his notes indicate the publicized tests took place on March 23rd.

That would lead us to believe that the Company Car window decals were added AFTER the last week of March 1967, i.e. no earlier than April 1967. 

It sure seems to this asset tagging was part of the structure that Ford added when they were in the process of or after the took SAI over. This could have happened at the same time as adding the "Z" stamp to VINs of retail units. Every asset was accounted for, as it should be when acquiring and merging another company...

[Brian Styles]

However, published photos of #0544 in the August 1967 edition of Drag Strip magazine do reveal decals on the front windshield.

This tells us these photos took place after the Goodyear tire tests in the end of March 1967. Given the typical 3-month lead time for print back then, it's likely these photos were taken circa May 1967.

[r.plescia289]

Kieth C. (SFM66H on the SAAC forum) was very kind to scan one of the above photos at a higher resolution.

The magazine was shared with him by Anthony D. (Road Reptile on the SAAC forum)

Through this team effort we now are able to discover the Company Car number on the windshield sticker for the Super Snake.

We hope #0544's new caretaker might be able to obtain a better copy of this photograph and share it with us, although we're very confident the company car number for VIN #0544 is 066.

Thank You Anthony and Kieth!

Expanding on this research, the 'Drag Strip' magazine article was published in the August 1967 issue. It confirms the Texas 'Goodyear' tire tests had already taken place. 

Our notes have this Goodyear tire testing as taking place in Texas on 3/23/67, although I'm not certain of my source for this specific date.

(Note: the 'Competition Press & Autoweek' issue, article and photos of the Super Snake tire testing, was published on 4/15/67).

As mentioned previously in this topic, the Texas test track photos don't show any company car stickers on the windshield.

Another car, #0463, was also tested in Texas, but on a different day, and for a different reason. Car #0463 was a Lime Gold '67 GT500 4-speed equipped with A/C. Its SAI 'Production Order' was marked "AC Cooling Tests". 

The Super Snake featured the outboard high-beam grille configuration with louvered hood -- we're pretty sure that #0463 was configured the same way. 

Having the outboard high-beam grille allowed better air flow directly into the radiator (and AC condenser) while the louvered hood allowed the engines hot air to escape. 

The tests on #0463 were performed under normal driving speeds and conditions. We have not found any photographs of #0463 at the track, on that day.

Based on the above information, we believe that the company car windshield stickers were added sometime after the car(s) returned to SAI at the end of March 1967.

With a typical 2-3 month lead time for magazines, the 'Drag Strip' article photos of #0544 would need to have been taken in May or June. 

This narrows the time frame when the company car windshield stickers were likely added to sometime between April though June.

Again, thanks to Anthony for sharing and Kieth's work for scanning these photos.

We'd like to point out the third gauge (probably temperature) mounted between the gauges of the stock pod and also the handwritten number on the top of the intake (probably a part number). 

[Brian S]

We feel pretty confident that we've now identified company car 105.

This decal was visible in the Public Relations photo at SAI with Carroll Shelby and a handful of kids from the Redondo Beach area

The identification was aided by recent input from some of the boys that that were in the photo. They include:

• John Houlgate - on hood, striped shirt
• Bob Becker - on hood with left hand on roof
• Randy Becker - passenger seat
• Gary [Becker?] - back seat
• Mark Morrison - standing, left of Carroll
• Jim Becker - standing, right of Carroll
• Mike Stevens - far right

Deke Houlgate, the father of several of the boys, was Carroll Shelby's publicist during the 1960s.  

From this photo we were able to identify the car as a dark-colored GT500 with Mag Star wheels.

The boys' recollection is that the car was dark green

From a third photo, we were able to confirm it was a 4-speed car.

Filtering our list of ‘company cars’ (fixed assets) to Dark Green G.T. 500 units, we get six (6) cars:

--> Two of those six were equipped with a 4-speed manual transmission.

------> One of those 4-speed cars had a black trim interior.

By process of elimination, the remaining candidate car is #0578, and according to the SAAC Registry, was a company car assigned to Lew Spencer.

We'd love to get a higher-resolution photo of the interior so we could confirm that the black trim was 5A (knitted vinyl) rather than 6A (smooth vinyl), as car #0578 should have received the 5A trim based on it's Ford build date.

 

Taking this a step further, we can attempt to determine the approximate date the photo may have been taken:

• one of the kids, Bob Becker, recalls a lot of activity in the shop, and therefore believes it was a weekday.
• If the kids are at SAI, they weren't in school - late afternoon or during their summer break?
• A car in the background of photo #2 shows has a 67½ front end (outboards), which tells us the photo would not be any earlier than May 1, 1967.
• Fixed asset window decal was likely applied after FoMoCo acquired SAI, and our theory is that happened around May 1, 1967.

We've even noticed that the V-neck sweater that Carroll is wearing is found in another set of marketing photos. It's completely probable that the following photos of two other cars were also taken on the same Summer day in 1967...

[Stephan Scholz]

No big found, but this GT350 had the something square in the windshield ... Photo is dated July 1967. Greets from Germany - Stephan

[Brian S]

Hi Stephan,

Great resolution on the photo. Any chance you have an even higher resolution version, and/or exact date of the photo?

 

We concur that the Lime Gold car appears to have a 2" square Shelby American 'fixed asset' decal in the lower corner of the front windshield.

We also observe that the car has steel wheels and NO radio antenna.

Here's a quick analysis:

• The SRG's company car tracking spreadsheet reveals that there was only one Lime Gold G.T. 350, #2766
• According to the VIN, #2766 was a 210F package (289 w/ auto trans), painted Lime Gold with Black trim. 
• According to the SAAC Registry, #2766 had the standard steel wheels.
• According to the Ford record, #2766 was part of DSO 2606. Cars on that DSO did not get an AM radio (from Ford SJ).
• SAI Fixed asset & tax ledgers indicate #2766 was assigned to the Automotive Division, Company-owned, and used for Engineering purposes.
• The 2011 SAAC Registry states #2766 was completed on July  24, 1967 and designated a 'company car' the day after.

Based on the above:

• We feel strongly that the Lime Gold G.T. 350 in the background of this picture could be #2766 
• We're not sure of the company car number (on the windshield decal), but might be 070 or 072
• The PR photo would have likely been taken after July 23rd, 1967.

[Stephan Scholz]

Hey, nice to read that is something new ... i have the pic from the Henry Ford Database,

Link to the pics

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/search-results#tab=artifact-results&terms=shelby gt40&years=0-0&perPage=100&pageNum=1&sortBy=relevance

i tryed to play with the pic but was not able to get the number ...

Maybe the service can give you a higher resolution of the pic.