Meet Ron Butler at the 2009 Austin Spring Meet

[SoTxButler]

Ron is coming to the 2009 Texas Cobra Club Spring Meet in Austin. If you want to “chew the fat” with someone who was there...come meet Ron and pick his brain about his days with the Shelby team and his car building career. I promise you will learn some fun and interesting stuff about the cars, the legend, and this passion of ours.

I have Butler #86 and Ron finished the car in 1993. In the interest of full disclosure, I am unabashedly biased and I think his work ranks with the best.

Ron has had an interesting and varied career in motorsports. He joined Carroll Shelby in 1964 and for the next six years, worked on the original Cobras, Daytona Coupes, GT-40s and Trans-Am Mustangs. He became the crew chief for Ken Miles and went to Le Mans five times as a member of the Shelby “over the wall” crew. He was part of the development team on the Toyota 2000 GT and did a lot of testing on the dry sump systems on the 427 Cobras by turning many laps at Riverside International Raceway.

He left Shelby in 1970 and opened his own shop in Culver City, CA and fabricated something like 30 to 40 Pro-Stock Drag Racers, including the Mopar Missile and three or four California Flash cars for Butch Leal.

Ron bought the original Cobra tooling from Shelby and eventually built 104 Cobras with both 427 and 351 Windsor engines. At one point, he fabricated racing oil pans, dry sump tanks and also created the molds for Wind Surfers for Coyle Schweitzer, inventor of the Wind Surfer. Ron still operates a business with his son Brett providing prototype fabrication work.

Early in his career, Ron raced Midgets and in 1974, returned to Midgets by constructing some of the first Midgets using down tubes and built six coil-over cars with adjustable sway bars in 1976. He raced with USRC Midgets for five years, finishing fifth in points one year and as runner up to Danny McKnight another year. He raced and crashed all over the west coast.

Beginning in 1980, Ron spent ten years racing a number of vintage car venues like Laguna Seca, Kent WA., Portland OR., and Sears Point. Some of the cars he raced were the Ken Miles R1 and R2 MGs, a Triumph 250, a Pete Brock designed Daytona, a Pantuzzi Ferrari V-12, Lotus Elite and a 356A Porsche owned by the late Pat Hart. As a side note, Ron originally built my car for Pat Hart.

I hope you can make the Austin Spring Meet and spend some time visiting with Ron. He is a great guy and he loves talking Cobras. I can assure you he is looking forward to seeing all the fine cars that will be there. To find him, look for my car, the black Cobra (no stripes) with a license plate reading “Butler”. I would love to see a big turnout of Butler owners. Let's see how many of his cars we can get to Austin. If you are coming, drop me a note and let me know. For those of you not familiar with the Austin meet, there were 168 cars last year. I guarantee you will enjoy Austin and the central Texas countryside. While sitting on the deck at the Oasis on Lake Travis enjoying Mexican Food, I promise you will be looking at one of the most awesome views you will ever see. The meet is generally held in late March....so watch for notices from the Austin Cobra Club. I feel sure they will be announcing the dates soon.

Ron currently lives in Santa Barbara with his wife Moira and has never been to Texas. I have promised that he will meet some of the nicest and friendliest people on earth and he and Moira are excited about visiting Central Texas. He is originally from New Zealand and has lived in Hawaii along the way.