New member, old Shelby employee.......

[migulitoraton85]

Hi y'all. Nice to be amongst the Shelby faithful again.

I was Mr. Shelby's National Sales Manager for the Wheel company back in the 80's, as well as his son Pat's crew chief on his Formula Atlantic team for 6 years, so if there's any questions about that era, I'd enjoy trying to answer them.

Didn't know there was another Shelby Racing Team, did ya? Yep.

Or would anyone care for Mr. Shelby's personal Chili recipe? It's ok, this is a great one, but not THE recipe. This is one he came up with for some of our better customers, and us underlings in the company. Still, it's better that anything else i've had..........maybe he did......................nah...
anyhow, thanks to the folks running this deal, much appreciated. Even for us old farts pecking around on these dang machines.........

best,

ck

[shelby6t5]

Welcome to the site, CK.

Mike

[tesgt350]

HI CK,
Welcome to the Site.....

David.

[67GT500#2100]

Welcome, glad you found us!

[TLEA]

Hi CK,
Welcome. We would love to hear about the reissued 10 spokes that came out in the 80s. My questions would be,
Why did they change the lug nut design?
Why the variations in valve stem hole location?
Why use the earlier large caliper style rather than the later 68 style with the 1/8" cast in place spacers to clear the newer calipers?
and of course, what happened to the molds?
Thanks,
Tim
ps: if the answer to the last question is "in my basement" disregard the other questions and call me directly

[rshelby]

The wheel company was sold in 1986 or 1987. The new owners were a Fortune 500 company and had experience with metal bending, stamping and so fourth, but no experience with a foundry and the specifics of wheel making. It was more than they could handle and the business quickly suffered. They started losing money and decided the best way to correct things was to raise prices on all of their customers, regardless of what contracts were in place. They fixed the problem in the short term and then proceeded to lose most of their customers. The company was shut down and the tooling was auctioned and picked up by an English company. If you want more details, I could find out for you. My Dad tried to buy back all of the equipment and see if he could salvage the business but was about two weeks too late.

Randall

[TLEA]

Randall, whatever info you can come up with would be great. Those 80's reissues or 2nd gen or whatever you call them have always been an enigma.

[GLHS444]

As a side note, does anyone know if the Centurian wheels from the 1986 GLHS with the Shelby name forged in the pattern cutout is from the Shelby Wheel venture??
If so, any idea where that wheel mold went??
It would be nice if that was kept by SAI.

[DeLa1Rob]

The story is that the '86 Centurian molds were destroyed. Hence the Centurian II wheels used in '87.

robin

[JamesFee]

Hey there ck

Glad to have ya here

[GLHS444]

Originally Posted by DeLa1Rob

The story is that the '86 Centurian molds were destroyed. Hence the Centurian II wheels used in '87.
robin

Don't remember hearing that...guess I need to be real careful about who and where I send my wheels to when I start my resto..

Now I know how you FiberRide guy's feel..