Greg,
Thanks for the interesting and informative account of your meeting with Ian
Garrad. I'm sure you are presenting an accurate and certainly very
believable account of what transpired. I take these personal accounts with
every bit as much weight as the printed word; perhaps even more so. But, if
I believe what I read, for example on pages 43-44 of Mike Taylor's book,
"Tiger, the Making of a Sports Car", there were two employees at Shelby
American who should get credit, George Boskoff (head mechanic), and Phil
Remington (chief engineer), although most of the work was done by Boskoff.
In Bill Carroll's book, "Tiger, an Exceptional Motorcar", he states that:
"Later reports disclose that engineering and construction done by Shelby
American were so comprehensive and painstaking that only two significant
changes (throttle linkage and shock absorber setting) were made after
testing by Rootes factory engineers prior to approval fro production. Ian
says, ' As a matter of fact, Carroll Shelby's bill only totaled $8,700.
Obviously, he made no money at this price but was excited at the successful
result. Later on, we made arrangements for Shelby to be paid a royalty on
every Sunbeam Tiger manufactured.' "
On the other hand, there are references in both Carroll's and Taylor's book
to "cut and fit, or cut and try and fit operations" in the selection of
components and their installation at Shelby American. Now, this is not what
I would call "comprehensive and painstaking" engineering. A damn fine
cobble job perhaps, but production engineered? I don't think so.
OK, I'm back after pouring myself a nice Chardonney. Now where was I? Oh
yes. So "cobbled together" or such a "splendid job of engineering", all the
Britts had to do was change the shock setting and the throttle linkage.
HMMMM?? I think anyone who has worked in engineering knows there's a lot
that goes on between the prototype and the production model. In the case of
the Tiger, there are even, to my limited knowledge, quite a few differences
between the Shelby prototype and the production cars. I really doubt they
drove the prototype down to the Jensen factory and said "Please build us
7,000 more just like this one." Now, on this side of the pond we might like
to believe it happened this way, but my own experience in taking
prototypes, no matter how well they perform, to the production level,
requires extensive engineering. In the case of the Tiger, that engineering
includes, but is not limited to, all of the unique features that makes the
Tiger chassis a "Tiger" rather than an "Alger". And did they use the same
rear axle? The same rack" The same steering arms, etc., etc.? I'm sure
there is a long list of differences that could be complied. I'm also sure
it was an important part of the strategy to sell Lord Rootes, et al., that
the car have the appearance and functional attributes as close to a
production vehicle as possible so as to pre-empt the kind of objections a
car like the Miles prototype would have prompted. And, last but not least,
I'm sure the idea of putting a (groan) American Detroit pig iron motor in
their fine sports car was itself a formidable hurdle.
All the above notwithstanding, I should probably relent a bit in my
deprecation of Shelby, et al. and give credit where credit is due. I still,
however, tend to think that, once old Rootey Tootey gave his thumbs up,
they could have sent the Shelby car to the crusher and not set the Tiger
project back much, if any. But, as I said, we'll never know for sure, now
will we.
Bob
At 08:10 PM 3/8/99 -0500, Gregory Wells wrote:
>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
Robert L. Palmer
Dept. of AMES, Univ. of Calif., San Diego
rpalmer@ames.ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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