GTX-1: Is the vintage racing one the real one?

[Historybuff]

Call me a purist but when i was at Laguna Seca a few years back i saw a dead ringer for the GTX-1 that won Sebring, and then sometime back the same car at the La Jolla concours. i wrote one of the judges at the LaJolla event and told him that a Shelby mechanic, the late Steele Therkelson, told me he was at the interment when the car was rolled into a shallow grave. During an interview of Carroll Smith, a Shelby racing manager in the '60s he told me the car was coming all a apart after Sebring--it wasn't safe to drive so he ordered it destroyed. I never saw any announcement in the racing press that the car has been found, disinterred and restored. I did read John Holman made a copy of it. But I read a story here

The Sebring-Winning GT40 X-1 Roadster. Maybe - Speedhunters

where Holman said the original was destroyed.

My only point is if the car is honored somewhere, some more documentation needs to be in print on its rediscovery. Steele wouldn't tell me where the interment site was but I think in the sands of Playa del Rey, near where Shelby had an office.