Bob Palmer wrote:
>
> Now, as for Shelby "designing" the Tiger - get serious!! Just what, may I
> ask, did Shelby design on the Tiger? As far as I understand, he cobbled
> something together just a bit better than the car Ken Miles put together in
> two weeks. Eric Neal, Jensen's chief design engineer would probably have
> some interesting and pertinent comments on the importance of Mr. Shelby's
> prototype on the final design. My belief is "not much". And, then there's
> the issue of the #45 car that Shelby "campaigned". What a fiasco!! Whether
> Shelby "couldn't" or "wouldn't", we'll probably never really know. What is
> a fact is that Rootes, and Ian Garrad in particular, were so unhappy with
> Shelby's effort, they dropped their support and went to Hollywood Spots
> Cars and Doane Spencer who spent about $40k and came up with something
> approximating a real race car. Now, with Jim Adams driving, there was no
> conflict of interest when a Tiger passed a Cobra, which it occasionally
> did. And probably much to the chagrin of Mr. Shelby and his team.
Bob,
I stayed for a week back in 1977 with Ian and Laura Garrad (Ian gave me
the key to his Marina del Rey office for all but one night, which I
spent at their home in Encino) to research a couple of Tiger articles I
wrote for Car Collector and Special Interest Autos. Ian pulled out all
of the Tiger files and pictures he had (which wasn't much) and we
conversed well into the night most of the week.
The Miles prototype was a quick and dirty jury-rig done at Ian's request
to see if it could be done. The Shelby prototype was assigned to George
Boltoff, who was later a noted Can-Am engine builder, and it was done
with an eye toward producing the car. Ian wanted to present Lord Rootes
with a fait accompli, a car so good and well-crafted that they simply
couldn't find an excuse not to move forward with it. According to Ian
and my sources, Rootes and Jensen had to do very little to render the
Boltoff prototype production ready (I seem to recall that the scuttle
braces were added by the Rootes engineers.) The way I see it is that
Garrad contracted Shelby for engineering services and got what he paid
for. I don't think Carroll hisself had a whole lot to do with producing
the prototype. His company, yes, but hands on, not to my knowledge. I
have never heard the $5 a car story and Ian said nothing about it to me.
Can someone refer me to a reliable source for this?
I can tell you that Ian didn't indicate that he had any bad feelings
about Shelby. In fact, I sensed a very real regard for the man from Ian
Garrad. In one of the missed opportunities of my life, Ian towed me
around the Marina checking out what he said were Carroll's favorite
watering holes, to see if we could run into him. Alas, we didn't find
Shelby anywhere, but we did have a quite few beers.
Greg Wells
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