BACK TO THE PADDOCK
Pony car gallops to original owner
Langley’s Garth Jackson has had a thing for sports and highperformance cars over the past six decades. The 82-year-old retired bookkeeper/office manager pilots a new Mustang fastback powered by a 310 horsepower turbocharged 2.3-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost engine that can reach 100 km/h from a standing start in just over five seconds.
That’s almost two seconds faster than the revered 1967 Shelby GT350 that pushed out 306 horsepower.
So it was a moment with extra meaning when Jackson was reunited with the ’67 Shelby GT350 fastback that he bought from Fogg Motors in New Westminster nearly a half-century ago.
Shelby enthusiast John Yamamoto, who now owns the car, drove it to Langley to show the original owner the ’Stang that legendary racer Carroll Shelby produced to go from the showroom to the track. Based on the Ford Mustang fastback, Shelby American, led by Shelby, transformed the rather mundane performing Mustang into a high-performance road-racing icon.
Jackson hadn’t seen his original car in 30 years. It was an emotional reunion.
This Acapulco Blue Shelby GT350 is one rare pony, as only 1,175 were produced. Furthermore, only 56 of the blue cars had four-speed transmissions. And only 11 of these were equipped with wheel covers as opposed to more common 10-spoke aluminum wheels.
Jackson bought his Shelby GT350 fastback new when he was a member of the Sports Car Club of British Columbia and ran the races at Westwood Motorsport Park in Coquitlam – Canada’s first purpose-built race track.
Fogg Motors was B.C.’s only authorized Shelby American dealer. Racing giant John Hall and high-performance tuner Dave Dunbar ran the high-performance division of Fogg Motors, selling racing accessories along with the cars.
In September, 1967, Jackson dropped by Fogg Motors. There were only two Shelby cars available - both identical Acapulco Blue GT350 models. These were among the last true Shelby cars built by Shelby American in Los Angeles before Ford took over production of the 1968 models in Detroit.
Jackson picked the one with the manual four-speed transmission, complete with an 8,000-RPM tachometer and a speedometer registering up to 140 miles per hour.
He paid $5,500 for the Shelby and traded in his blue 1965 Chevelle Malibu Super Sport convertible with a 300-horsepower engine coupled to a four-speed transmission that he had factory-ordered two years before.
The Shelby became his daily driver from his family’s home on Vancouver’s west side to his job in Burnaby. He took his mother on two trips to her hometown of Winnipeg in the car.
This car was unique because the original Fiberglas hood cracked so badly it couldn’t be fixed. It was replaced with a hood from the Fogg Motors inventory that had functioning louvres meant for an air-conditioned car.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the car and it only let me down once when the clutch linkage broke while I was driving it to work,” Jackson says.
The Shelby was finally retired to the garage behind the family home in the mid-’70s when Jackson bought a cottage and needed a station wagon to transport construction material.
The realtor who sold his mother’s house told a friend who operated a body shop that there was a dust-covered Shelby stored in the garage of the west side home. Martin Lammers bought the car, carefully cleaned it inside and out, repainted it and resold it to Cap’s Cycle owner Glen Hobbis.
Yamamoto has been a Shelby owner for nearly 20 years after buying a 1969 GT350 convertible with an automatic transmission in San Juan Capistrano, California for his 50th birthday.
But his real passion was for a 1967 GT350 with the manual fourspeed transmission. He searched all over North America for the right car. He found his dream car in the Vancouver area where it has been for the past 49 years.
He paid the price to buy what he views as one of the best, unrestored cars available. These cars sell for as much as US$150,000. It has only 96,500 original miles registered on the odometer
Yamamoto will be displaying his prized car along with an estimated 150 other collector vehicles at the 31st annual Hallmark Ford Shelby Mustang show Monday on B.C. Day (Aug. 1).
“It’s a great way to showcase the vehicles from back in the day, listen to the stories about how someone found their father’s car, barn finds and true love affairs with cars,” says show sponsor Jeff Hall.
Hosted by the Shelby Car Club since 1985, it is the local show that features the most Shelby cars assembled in one place every year.
Yamamoto has invited Jackson to bring his high-powered 2015 Mustang to the show to complete the reunion with the Shelby Jackson bought new nearly half-acentury ago.
Somewhere, Carroll Shelby is smiling.
Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company. aedwards@