Newbie-2 factory Sealed Shelby Cobra Gas Cap Emblems

[IBTeenaB]

Hello all. I am new to this forum but I was hoping that you might be able to help me. While going through my grandfather's things, I found 2 factory sealed 1965 Shelby Cobra gas cap emblems. They are in pristine condition and I am sure that they would be a fun addition to someone restoring their Cobra but I am unsure as to how to find someone who would be interested in them. Also, not sure what they are worth to a collector of such items. I did check on eBay but I didn't see anyone with this type of item listed so I am at a loss. Although this is a fun item, it is not something that we will miss as it has been a long time since grandpa had a car like this so we are willing to part with these pieces. Any thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and have a great day!! --Teena

[vernonestes]

Please post some pics so we can get a good look at it

the price on something like that is unestimable as they are very hard to find pieces. you never know what someone will pay for a part like that.

Best Regards,
Vern

[roddster]

You'll need to post a photo of these. Me, I can't post for you but I'm sure somebody else can do this.

Ah, I thought the Cobra (the 2 seater) had a full aluminum race type cap, no emblem.
And the 65 Shelby GT 350 just used the stock Mustang emblem. So, maybe these are 66 emblems.
And on the other hand, They didn't call the Mustangs "Shelby Cobras" until the 1967 model year. Are these flat or do they have a curve to them?

[Bobs350]

Hi,
Could be for the steering wheel center cap .
Bob

[IBTeenaB]

Hello again. These emblems are rounded. I thought they might be gas cap covers because I saw some replicas on eBay that looked similar to these. I will have to figure out my new computer and see how to get pictures of these. Thank you for your help and I hopefully be back soon with pics.

Teena

[IBTeenaB]

I think that I figured out how to post pictures so, hopefully they will be attached here. Also, I just noticed that these have a copyright date of 1966 but I am not sure if that helps anything. There is also a part number:

S8MS-9A031-C and it says "emblem s5" under the part number. It also seems that one of the packages was open but it looks like it may have just been due to the package deteriorating.

[roddster]

I want to point out that:

1) If these were way old stock, the bags would be paper, like the one I have from the early 1970's.
2) These are at least 15-20 years old as there in no computer grid bar code on these bags.
3) I suppose this is where we argue about wheter or not these are New-old-stock, right?
4) "S8" in the part number means these are for a 68

Not bad huh? But still cool pieces.

[Bobs350]

Hi All,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I was told back in the "Day" that the Auto Makers were required to maintain a stock of replacement parts for 10 Years. After that they could deem them "obsolete" and discontinue production. Due to the limited # of Shelby's produced there was a limited production run of replacement parts that were unique to Shelby's only.
When Ford last made the Shelby alot of Mustang Owners were adding Shelby parts for the "Custom" look these parts provided, depleting the required "stock" Ford was required to maintain. This required Ford to re-supply using the original suppliers of what was mostly trim items, which explains the packaging difference, plastic was cheaper and sealed better preserving the part.
My Uncle who was a Master Mechanic and then Parts Distributer for Ford for 30 Years was the source of this info.
68's are prone to fiberglass cracking especially in the hood scoop area as mine did in '69 which prompted me to have him purchase for me all of the front fiberglass and trim pieces that I still have to this day. I was still purchasing '68 Mustang and Shelby Unique items as late as 1981 from Ford Dealers in Hawaii and California and purchased items in both the "old" paper and the newer plastic bags, some of the larger fiberglass items actually had 1970's dates stamped on the boxes.
These are indeed NOS as an NOS part was one that was produced for the Auto Maker as a replacement part and could only be purchased from a Dealer.
That said Everyone have a Great Weekend!!
Bob #02714

[rr64]

The term "NOS" (New Old Stock) has morphed into a catch all term for just about any new part more than a couple of years old. You will see people advertising "NOS" parts for something like a 1928 Ford Model A and 2004 Mustangs in the same publication.

My father brought home his first Ford Model A in 1961 and we started hitting the meets (old car events weren’t shows back then) and their flea markets (the term used often used today is swap meet) hunting parts for it.

Not that this means much in 2007, but for decades NOS meant a true production period new in factory packaging “production” surplus part sold by the OEM as a service part. These parts were manufactured at the same time as parts used to build the car and pure random chance put them in the service channel and on a new car. A common practice is to make production plus something like twenty percent for service. (Your going to make a run of unique final product. Let’s say 100 special models for example. You make enough parts to build 120 complete units. 100 sets of everything goes to production. 20 sets of everything goes into the service parts / dealer service channel to service warrantees and assist damage repair. If the model is a flop (think Ford Edsels for example) the OEM may be discarding brand new production parts after a few years to get rid of them. If the model is a success the OEM may still be making batches of parts for them for many decades.)

As Bob pointed out the OEMs are required to provide service parts for new vehicles for ten years. That does not mean they spend millions on hundreds of thousands of parts to make them, package them, and store them safely for ten years (or longer). That means they have the means to have parts produced when ordered. I ordered some new parts for a 1967 GT500 circa 1975 and when they arrived after a long wait the date marked on the parts was AFTER MY ORDER WAS PLACED. They worked but they weren’t exactly like the old ones. Service parts made post production are not required to be exactly like the original production ones. Replacement parts must perform the function but can be different materials, from different tools, from different suppliers, from different countries, etcetera. I do not work at an automobile OEM but I do work for Fortune 50 OEM and the rules for us are almost exactly them same.

By the 1974ish time frame Ford had almost complete sold out of “Shelby” original run parts. Some individuals, who also were parts dealers, submitted orders to Ford dealers in mass for virtually ever GT350/GT500 unique part. Also in the 1970s Maier Racing and Valley Ford Parts started having “resproductions” made, often by the original suppliers. The result was a flood of brand new made parts for GT350/GT500 cars. Finding parts dated in the 1970s and 1980s is not that uncommon. Some parts were made exactly like originals by original suppliers and some were not. At the time these items were call NRS or New Replacement Stock . Now years later they are more properly NORS or New Old Replacement Stock. If you do some research and compare original assembly line parts to these later replacements you will find many differences in many of the parts. The 1967 GT350/GT500 parts have some of the widest range in design as many of the parts required new tools and suppliers (some in Mexico) when reissued. (OEM’s don’t call new replacements reproductions. They usually call them reissues.) Many of the new OEM packaged parts made in the 1980s or later were reverse engineered by the OEM from an example in some parking lot or another. Some of them were seriously flawed. On OEM, as told by one of their engineers, reverse engineered a body part for 1967 model using the daily driver of an employee as a pattern. They reissued the part to the restoration hobby. End users could not use the parts because they would only fit the one car they measured, which had been wrecked and repaired. They had to start over and find a pristine car to measure and make a second new tool and even this tooling produced parts that did not exactly match originals.

Specific Example: I had two low mile 1965 GT350s in the 1970s. The “GT350” plates on their tail light panel were cast pot metal that WERE PAINTED. The parts were painted silver and the inset letters were painted black. In my search for one genuine NOS one I found one from an ex-Shelby dealer in the blue and gray FoMoCo box that was cast pot metal and painted. That is the last true NOS 1965 one I saw. It looked right and fit right. I could get a NRS part at the local Ford dealer under the same 1965 GT350 part number in the blue and white Ford box that was BRUSHED ALUMINUM with painted inset letters. (I think the brushed aluminum versons might have been 1966 GT350 specification??????) The lettering type face was also slightly different. It would not fit the existing holes in the body on either original 1965 GT350 so I did not use it; I wasn’t going to modify the car to make a replacement fit. From Ford’s point of view this service part made of a different material, different finish, in different tooling, different lettering, and slightly off stud spacing filled their obligation. Here in the 21st Century the only original painted cast pot metal tail panel emblems I have seen are on the very few unrestored 1965 GT350s still existing that have not had “new” parts swapped in to improve their appearance.

This discussion could be for any low volume car like L-88 Corvettes, Don Yenko’s cars, Motion’s cars, early Z/28 Camaros, Cobras, 427 Cobras, GT40s, etcetera. If an OEM made X quantity low volume cars that at the time they though would be junked shortly due to their intended use racing, they would not make 4X or 5X more parts during the original build and store them for decades so people could rebuild every car 4X or 5X times and that doesn’t even cover the maybe 200X owners of plainer models that want special parts from more exciting ones. This does not cover the Shelby and later Ford Muscle parts that Shelby and Ford sold by the many thousands as catalog item “speed parts”, but here again the S2MS COBRA intake purchased new from Shelby or Ford in 1968 is not the same casting as a S2MS COBRA intake used on 1966 GT350s just two years earlier – another replacement in function not exact detail.


A car of some significance (a 1960s Shelby car perhaps) needs some parts. It may be missing some or some might be in poor condition. A former owner may have significantly modified and or crashed the car. Maybe they just destroyed the original engine during a stop light grand prix.

Having been around car restorers, people that mostly reconditioned a car’s original parts instead of the current “restorer” that mostly pulls replacement parts from plastic bags, since 1961 a common theme exists with the old craftsmen in the AACA, Model A Restorers Club, Corvette Restorers Society, Aurbun-Cord-Dusenburg, et. al. groups. Parts for a car during service, repair, or rebuild can be sourced as (#1 being most desirable and #8 the least – FROM AN ACCURACY/HISTORICAL FRAME OF REFERENCE):

1) Use the original parts from the car. Repair them, repaint, replate, reupholster, etc. the original parts the car came FROM the factory with. Duplicating the work of others in the tiniest detail is some of the most difficult undertaking there is. It is harder to exactly copy what someone else has done that it was for it to be made in the first place. Like art restoration, for perhaps every ten million people that can make a new painting you might find one that can repair somebody else’s painting so it doesn’t show up. For the very serious collectors, the guys who never buy or sell in public, an original part is history and everything else is just, well something else. These people would rather have a car with a dent in its hood than fix the dent if it meant killing the original factory paint. A spot repair done extremely well may be acceptable if invisible to casual inspection. Well worn original tires are much more desirable than anything else, even if duplicate set of wheels and modern tires are used for driving. While many people might strip and repaint the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci because the original finish has cracked with age these guys would marvel that the cracked paint was applied centuries ago and hasn’t fallen off. You get the idea.

2) Use parts from a car just like it. If you have a car built on March 1965 and it missing lets say its original shifter, then next best thing would be the original shifter from another car just like yours built under the exact same specifications. If specifications changed every three months, which is common for many types of cars, the pool of cars to salvage parts from will be very small probably. Most desirable would be to keep date coded parts in mind during the hunt. Got a March 1965 car and a June 1967 engine, oops.

3) Genuine parts pulled from production runs at the time the car was built for service needs. Prior to the 1960s up Corvette and Mustang boys getting into the act a New Old Stock (NOS) 1963 (pick a part) part was actually made in 1963 during production runs and it was just fate that directed it to miss an assembly line and get into a service part package.

4) An OEM service part made for an earlier application. This use to be the New Replacement Stock (NRS) designation. This was maybe a 1968 design/revision part being sold to service lets say a 1965 car. After these parts get a couple years old they are New Old Replacement Stock (NORS). These may or may not be the original supplier, tooling, manufacturing processes, and or materials. They “will work”.

5) Reverse engineered. When original and replacement OEM parts have been used up it becomes appropriate to reverse engineer the design and have parts made. If you are making parts for yourself or they have no maker’s copyrighted or trade marked features or logos this is straight forward. If intellectual properties are involved, selling reverse engineered designs can become a costly affair and or a legal nightmare.

6) Reproduction. Unless the designs, materials, and source are OEM approved, most people using the term reproduction are using the term incorrectly. I true reproduction uses factory specifications, drawings, methods, and materials and will equal or exceed the performance the OEM production parts.

7) Generic service part. This may or may not be sourced from the OEM. This part might have been made by anybody just to fill the market void. This is a pure case of supplying a part that will fill the application functionally. This is selling 1980s Granada suspension parts to keep 1965-66 Mustangs running the road. The part will work but may look significantly different.

8) “Replica Car” parts. These are parts that look good at 50/50, i.e. they look like originals used by an OEM decades ago at 50 feet and or going by at 50 mph. Generally they are not bolt in replacements for any old car. Guess what many people are using to “restore” 1960s cars with, yep, the cheapest lowest on the totem pole parts money can buy. The vast majority of “1960s Parts” available new in the market were designed and marketed first for cars that are anything but an original car. Many can be reworked to fit an original car. This is much like getting polyester from Malaysia; cotton from Egypt maybe, dies from Iran, tools from North Vietnam, and labor from deep in main land China to make ‘genuine authentic original 1812 old glories’ US Flags.

If it is a matter of history and respect for the people that created the legend, get as close to #1 as possible.

Just an opinion from an long timer (since 1961), cheers……….

[Bobs350]

Dan,
Wonderful clarification.
I Knew Bill (Maier Racing) when he was starting his OTC Business and was in sort of a competition with him trying to purchase parts from the Bay Area Ford Dealers. I actually seen his crew making some of the molds he used to reproduce (lower valance, header) his '68 parts, which I fitted to a number of '68 Mustangs and the fit was almost perfect. The only difference I noted was Maier's were a little thicker on the lower valance which would crack around the license plate bracket.
Hopefully Your response can better guide those trying to restore a wrecked or project Shelby. I was fortunate enough to have purchased the majority of My parts in '69-'75. I do look for parts that were taken off of original Cars but they are becoming more and more difficult to find as they are finding there way into Clones.
Does anyone know where SAAC and MCA stand on this issue?
Best Regards, Bob

[rr64]

Even in 1972 I was having difficulty finding exact match parts for my 1970 Boss 302. Even items like the rear window louver kits had all kinds of small differences from assembly line parts. I cracked a valve cover the first time I adjusted the valve lash and I never did find a new cover from Ford that was 100% like the ones on the car, close but not the same. I therefore did a lot of parts hunts in salvage yards. Back before the Mustang Club Of America gathered a following and before Steve Earle (spelling?) started the vintage racing activity I knew salvages yards with all types of Boss and Shelby Mustangs in them. (Note: Some of the cars I saw as little more that VIN numbers in the 1970s are now recreated top dollar cars with plain Mustang donor car chassis.) In one yard just north of Florence Alabama there were several 1970 Boss 302s, a row of 428 Mach 1s, rows of 406/427 Galaxies, half a 1966 GT350 (sorry don’t recall the number – didn’t write that one down – didn’t think anybody would ever try to use it), and an old hull of a school bus jammed full of Boss 302, 406/427, and 428 engines and transmissions and pieces thereof. Salvage yards use to allow you to take a tool box out in their yards and get whatever you wanted. I cleaned out several of every nice condition (left anything not near perfect) HP289, Mustang GT, or Boss 302 part I could find. I got down to getting little parts like windshield washer tees, hoses, and all the fastening hardware. Over the years I have used almost all these parts up refilling holes where parts use to be in cars that I have bought and sold or to help a friend.

Since the circa 1980 time frame most of the parts for Shelbys and Cobras I have obtained were perfectly good ones removed from original cars for one of two reasons. 1- Somebody “restores” a car and replaces everything with even the slightest blemish with a bright new part, often a reproduction. Example: Circa 1979 a vendor got Holley to make a run of List 3259-1AAS 715 cfm Holleys for service of GT350s. He sold them at an attractive price and sold them quickly. Suddenly in just months a lot of carburetors that left Shelby American on 1965 and 1966 GT350s, ones that were in excellent condition, became available for sale for less than the cost of a reproduction. I bought several of the better condition low mile 1965 List-3259 and 1966 List 3259-1 units I found for sale. I recently sold the last one I picked up from that period to a 1966 GT350 owner that wanted to make his car better by replacing, guess what, a replacement unit made in the decades beyond the original production of the car. This car went full circle, original sold to put on new pretty, excellent old match to the original to get the later day unit off. When CS Enterprises reissued 15X7 ten spoke wheels for 1967/68 GT350/500 cars I got the fantastic original condition wheels and tires for a 1968 car when the owner installed “new” wheels. So on, and so forth. 2- Vintage racing claimed a lot of cars. It is true that some cars that got converted were not much more than rusty VIN numbers, a friend has such a car and its history is well known. In other cases near mint unrestored cars were gutted and converted. I ended up with the tachometer out of a 289 Cobra that was a very nice street car that got converted in the 1990s. The new owner stripped the car down to the main frame and body which he reused. HE SOLD OR DISCARDED EVERYTHING ELSE!!!! A couple of enterprising guys bought several nice 289 Cobra street cars and had them converted to Daytona Coupe replicas a few years ago. Selling the parts off partially paid for the conversions I would guess?

There are numerous parts for Shelbys and Cobras that can in original form (a) only come from another car of the same vintage or (b) be a recreation. Based on evidence on cars repaired early in life and the 1965 Shelby parts book some Cobra parts were never sold as service parts, i.e. even as new Cobras sat on dealer show room floors the parts SAI supplied were service replacement “will work” versions that superseded the production parts.