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Racing California Specials

Rene Gimenez

New member
Joined
Aug 8, 2006
Messages
2
Location
Valencia, California
Has anybody ever come across information regarding California Specials used in road racing- specifically late 60's SCCA Trans Am or A Sedan? In 1968 Shelby American was the Ford factory team in Trans-Am with the Mustang Sedan, and I thought they would have found some sort of performance advantage using the spoilered trunk lid. Based on the production numbers of the GT/CS and HCS, homologation of these pieces for racing would have presented no problems.
 

390cs68rcode

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
2,864
Location
Houston Texas
I read/heard a story where they (Shelby Racing) put a CS trunk (which is also the Shelby vert trunk) on a coupe for a race but were told to take it off before the race started because the coupe did not have that trunk as stock (I assume this was before the CS came out). I might have heard this from one of the current Shelby drivers at the Tulsa Shelby show.
 
P

PNewitt

Guest
In my 1996 Registry book, I told about a letter I received from Lew Spencer in 1990, Shelby's Trans-Am leader for '68--that they tried to use the spoiler decklid and endcaps on one of the '68 Trans Am cars; claiming the GT/CS was the production car that allowed them to do that.

The Javelin team didn't like that (even though they had their own custom spoiler), so the rules guys told the Shelby team that it had to go. So, overnight, they took the stuff off, and acted like it never happened.

Since the Shelby team couldn't use thier own engines, they had a hard time winning in '68, blowing up engines....so, they decided to pull the Javelin's chain and give them a hard time for fun.

This was about as close that the GT/CS was in Trans Am racing--one day!

More about this in the new book...

Paul N.
 
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