This is no ordinary Mustang. A
one-off created by Shelby American and dubbed The Green Hornet by superstar
Bill Cosby, it was bid to $1.8m at auction – yet still didn’t sell. Here’s why
With those three words Craig Jackson
(co-founder of Barrett- Jackson Auctions) instigated one of the more memorable
moments I've had while photographing a car. We were in the midst
of proceedings when he unexpectedly came to a stop and uttered that phrase.
As I stood on the side of the road
bewildered, he mashed the throttle. The tires on the Green Hornet - a one-off
Shelby Mustang with a two- comma price tag - began spinning furiously, a cloud
of rubber-induced smoke billowing out from the back. Jackson flashed a
mischievous grin, released the brake, and the Hornet shot off with a thunderous
roar, the tires chirping with each upshift of the car's experimental automatic
transmission.
Green
Hornet Mustang - One In Several Million
Right now a few questions are likely
running through your head. 'What in God's name is the Green Hornet?' quickly
followed by 'How can any Mustang carry a two-comma price tag?' and leading to
'Why would anyone light up the tires on a prized possession just days before
it is a starring lot in their own auction?'
Let's tackle the first two queries. Certain
countries have their star marques, those manufacturers engulfed in mystique. In
the UK, the names are Aston Martin, Jaguar and Bentley; Germany has
Porsche and Mercedes-Benz; Italy Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo. The glue
that holds these greats together is their innumerable racing triumphs on home
turf and the international stage, culminating with Le Mans victories and/or
world championship trophies. Plus they are all well known for their custom
coachwork and limited production models.
In America, the one marque that ticks all
those boxes is Shelby American. Carroll Shelby's Cobra burst onto the scene in
1962, and within three years the Daytona Coupes captured the FIA crown. Then,
from 1965 to '67, the only Ford GT40s that chalked up victories at Le Mans,
Daytona and Sebring were Shelby-prepped.
On the US side of the Atlantic the mystique
didn't stop there, as Carroll and co turned the nascent muscle car scene on its
head. In 1964 Ford wanted its recently released and selling- like-gangbusters
Mustang to be recognized as a sports car, and approached the Sports Car Club of
America (SCCA) to have it designated as such. SCCA racing was highly
influential back then, with major players such as Corvette, Jaguar, Porsche and
Shelby's Cobras competing regularly.
On
the US side of the Atlantic the mystique didn't stop there, as Carroll and co
turned the nascent muscle car scene on its head.
Imagine Ford's surprise when they were
rebuked... So company star Lee Iacocca turned to Carroll to apply his magic to
the Mustang. Shelby called SCCA head John Bishop, asking what it would take to
transform Ford's newest into a sports car so it could go racing. He got his
answer (two seats, modifications to the engine or suspension but not both), and
handed the project to test driver Ken Miles and ace troubleshooter Phil
Remington. Then Chuck Cantwell joined Shelby as Mustang project engineer. Ford
debuted its lovely 2+2 fastback, and Pete Brock created what is possibly the
most famous graphics package ever put on a car.
In early 1965 after several months of
intense development, Shelby's new GT350 won its first ever race. From that
point on E-types, Corvettes and everything else saw nothing but taillights, and
GT350s won the SCCA's prestigious B/Production class championship three years
in a row.
Shelby also built a small run of GT350
convertibles in 1966, and won the inaugural Trans Am championship that year. In
1967 Shelby picked up its second Trans Am crown, all while giving the GT350 new
bodywork and a 7.0-liter brother, the GT500.
Carroll's continual quest for speed saw the
Paxton supercharger remain an option on the newly styled 4.7-litre GT350, and a
trick one-off notchback GT500 affectionately named 'Little Red' was fitted with
one too. Amazingly, it wasn't the fastest Shelby Mustang, as the GT500 Super
Snake (powered by a race-spec 427) cleared 170mph while testing at Goodyear's
Texas facility. The proposed 50- unit production run never materialized, and
the Super Snake remained a one-off.
In
early 1965 after several months of intense development, Shelby's new GT350 won
its first ever race.
If this kind of 'have got to go faster'
mechanical tinkering, with short-run production models and one-offs, sounds
familiar, it should - in Italy such street cars were known as Speciales and
fuori serie models, and the men who made them there and in southern California
lived and thrived in the same type of automotive culture. To wit: in central
Italy, tests and competitions were held at the Aerautodromo di Modena; in
southern California, the dry lake sand local circle tracks. The auto industries
in both locations had massive infusions of sophisticated aircraft technology
following World War Two, when ex-military craftsmen looked for places to apply
their skills.
That and more lured employees from all
corners of the world to be part of the special working atmosphere fostered by
such charismatic leaders as Carroll Shelby, Enzo Ferrari and Ferruccio
Lamborghini. When Cobra production was in full swing, Shelby racer John Morton
would blow off going to the movies with friends so he could head back to the
factory. 'I would come in after dinner,' he remembers, 'and those employees
that were of any value [always] had something going on they had to get
finished. I would come back just to watch them.'
Compare this with what engineer Gianpaolo
Dallara says about his years at Lamborghini (1963-68), which coincidentally
overlap much Of the Shelby story: 'We were [at the factory] all the time. It
was so exciting and happily we did not realize how difficult it was!'
'Why
would anyone light up the tires on a prized possession just days before it is a
starring lot in their own auction?'
So they thought the same way, and each organization
had its own master mechanical magician. Dallara created the Miura from scratch,
all while marveling at how Maserati chief engineer Giulio Alfieri could 'create
something from nothing'. At Shelby the go-to man was Phil Remington. He could
create a component or solve any problem, usually the first time he tackled the
task.
Such common threads weave their way through
the great marques, and form the basis of why cars such as the Green Hornet
command two-comma prices. There are other reasons, the most obvious to Shelby
fans being the muscular coachwork: the Hornet was one of only two Shelby
notchback coupes (the other being Little Red, which no longer exists, so in
that sense the Hornet is a one-off). It also served as the second coachwork
prototype for a limited production Mustang model, the GT/ CS, with Shelby
modifying the Hornet to use the GT350/500 hood and front end.
