[A-Snake]

Originally Posted by Ron61

This is in no way meant to get me into any arguments and I AM NOT knocking Shelby or any other person. But in the September 2008 issue of Hot Rod Magazine there is a letter written by Lew Holman, President of Holman Moody Inc., that I believe many would find quite interesting. I believe that many of you would find it quite interesting, and this is written by a man that was there and knows what went on, not another person who has studied records and written their version. And it does deal with Shelby and the Cobras and some of the politics that went into the racing.

Ron

Ron, I assume you mean this letter.

"holman & moody, inc.
9119 Forsyth Park Drive
Charlotte, NC 28273
704 583 2888

April 22 2008

To: Hot Rod magazine


In response to the story you recently published with a comment from Mr. Shelby about the Holman & Moody team. I would like to make note of a few things Mr. Shelby seems to have overlooked.

The correct name for Mr. Moody is Ralph Moody and he was a master at making a race car handle. Ralph’s talents were best for chassis adjustments on the smaller short tracks but they also applied to the road race tracks of both America & Europe.

John Holman, was a master tool maker and he had been part of the winning Lincoln Mexican road race team, crewed at the Indy 500, and dreamed of being able to make racing faster & safer. When he was hired in 1956 to manage the failing Ford factory race team on the East Coast he quickly changed the cars to reflect his own ideas. His team won so many races that the other car companies talked Ford into pulling the factories out of racing.

Our 1957 Thunder Birds were winning on the sports car tracks beating the Corvettes & Ferraris of their day. In NASCAR, the Holman & Moody built cars won race after race on both road course and oval tracks from 1956 on. In the early 1960s our Falcons sports cars out ran the Cobras at a number of events.

In 1963, the Holman & Moody Galaxies were storming across Europe winning race after race. Fred Lorenzen was winning in America in Holman & Moody Fords and Dan Gurney took on the field at Riverside.

In 1964, while Shelby was having a rough go with his Cobras in Europe, the Holman & Moody Rally Falcons were making history on the Monte Carlo Rally. This point was noted at a Shelby Club dinner some years ago when the guest speaker, Bob Bondurant, noted that he had used the Holman & Moody Falcons as practice cars at a number of events because the Cobras could not hold up for both practice and the race. He also said that the Falcon lap times were hard to beat in a Cobra.

When the new Mustang replaced the Falcon, it was Holman & Moody and Alan Mann Racing in England that built the first Mustang race cars. These Mustangs using the Rally Falcon parts were able to win the 1964 Tour De France.

Mr., Shelby seems also to have forgotten that it was Alan Mann Racing that raced the Cobra Coupes in Europe in 1965 with myself as part of the team that year, and that it was the performance of Alan Mann Racing that won the championship for the Ford Cobras that year.

While on Tom Cotter’s Cobra Tour last summer, I was please to hear a speech made By Mr. Tom Yeager. When asked how he was able to outrun the Shelby Factory team cars at most of his events. He replied that it was a little known fact that his GT 350 was prepared and maintained by Holman & Moody. He would pick the Mustang up and go outrun the Shelby Mustangs.

When you look back at the Le Mans races one should also recall that Mr. Shelby did race GT 40s at Le Mans without the help of Holman & Moody, in 1965 and the outcome was not that note worthy. I was at that race and the Alan Mann Team’s Cobra Coupes finished the race for Ford.

In 1966, Ford asked if Holman & Moody could and would help save the project. Because Ford owned the Shelby American company at that time, Holman & Moody was under team orders not to pass or race the Shelby team cars. Our drivers were able to follow orders and we finished in third place behind the two Shelby team cars. Dan Gurney talked about the team orders on film when he says that the only competition he had at Le Mans in 1967 was the Holman & Moody cars but they had been taken care of politically and were not a problem.

After 50 years of winning, Holman & Moody continues today building vintage race cars and engines. We just sent an engine to Europe for a 1956 Thunder Bird that will run in the Mille Miglia, and a new 427 for the original Holman & Moody Mark II that finished third in 1966. We continue to build race winning cars.

When Holman & Moody was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame, The president of NASCAR said “ Without Holman & Moody there would be no NASCAR. “ Holman & Moody built and sold the quality parts that allowed ten cars to be racing for the win on the last lap. That made the races exciting so that TV wanted to cover that excitement. We sold the same parts that we raced to our competition yet as a team Holman & Moody continued to win.

While one does have to give Shelby credit for placing himself in the right place at the right time, so that he could become a legend of the performance industry, he did not do any of this alone. Other people had put a Ford V8 engine in a AC Ace, other people had won in Mustangs , but Shelby was able to market those products and himself. It took, Ford, Holman & Moody, Alan Mann and all the great drivers and team members of each of those teams and the hard work of the Shelby American Automobile Club to enable Mr. Shelby to be what he is today.

Lee Holman, President

Holman & Moody, Inc.


PS I was not able to include the winning Drag racing, off shore ocean racing, ski boat races, or the off road part of John Holman’s history. If you would like to know more about Holman & Moody fell free to visit our shop in Charlotte, North Carolina."