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Originally Posted by jmimac351
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Yep, that's me. Was a long time ago. That was a fun little project. We ended up stretching the body to fit a 92 inch wheelbase and putting a LS/6speed in it. Sold the whole thing off to some strange guys in Russia that had been building small aircraft. I'm not sure if they ever really got it going. I still have the body buck stored in Ca, and it turned out to be a really cool looking little roadster and a blast to drive. Similar to an open wheel Cobra I suppose.
Now to really stir up some trouble. In about 1992, Carroll Shelby, Don Landy then president of Shelby's companies, and I took one of his Shelby CanAm SCCA cars and put a Cosworth Ford V8 in it, very quietly. Because the timing was right, we built the car for a TV show called Race Day owned by Pat Patterson. We put the Dodge V6 in it as was the regulation for that race series. But after that, Carroll asked me if I could get my hands on the Cosworth and I had two in crates from some Indy car development stuff I had just done. So with a blind eye from Cosworth, not wanting to get in a Dodge fight, in it went in front of a special designed Pete Wiseman transaxle (terrible piece to shift). I did the testing at Laguna Seca over several weeks and it was a monster. Kind of like the old CanAm days, no driver assisted anything, about 800 HP I would guess with a low test boost and 1400 pounds. Patterson filmed the testing and broadcast it on his TV show. That turned out to be a mistake as the political winds blew and the car was quietly shelved as Dodge got bent out of shape with that Ford motor in it and the SCCA needed that relationship. The car was still being stored in a warehouse in Salinas last time I talked to Carroll before his death and I'm not sure anyone else knows that, until now I guess. Don Landy and Carroll parted company and Landy disappeared and all the guys that had a hand in the development are scattered to the winds or gone now....or probably don't remember. There was always a question of "who" owned the car or engine for that matter, so it was just made to disappear for a while. Been a long while now. I wonder if this is another unknown little chapter in the life of Carroll......among many more I'm sure. Someone will come across the car at some point and maybe this will help build its history.