Photos by Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
The Shelby American G.T. 350R was created with a singular purpose in mind: transform the image of the Ford Mustang from “sporty car” into “proven race winner.” With a limited budget and tight deadline, Shelby American’s Venice, California, team managed just that, delivering a car that not only produced numerous race wins, but captured the SCCA B-Production championship in 1965, 1966 and 1967. On Saturday, May 2, the 1965 Shelby G.T. 350R that carried owner Freddy van Buren Beuren to the 1967 SCCA B-Production championship will cross the auction stage in Fort Worth, Texas, as part of RM Sotheby’s Andrews Collection sale.
Delivered to Shelby American as a K-code fastback on December 18, 1964, the Mustang that would eventually carry Shelby build tag “5R108” sat untouched in the Venice facility until March 1, 1965. The conversion process from production Mustang to full-race Shelby was a lengthy one, and the build wasn’t finalized until August of 1965. After shipping 5R108 to Bill Humphries at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, proving grounds for shakedown testing, it was returned to Shelby American by early September. On September 22, the completed G.T. 350R was shipped off to Gene Hamon Ford in Texas City, Texas.
Gene Hamon Ford raced cars, too, relying upon the services of talented regional drivers to produce satisfactory finishes. At an SCCA Regional at Green Valley Raceway in Smithfield, Texas, Bill Steele was tasked with driving 5R108, as he’d previously delivered wins behind the wheel of a Shelby Cobra and a Shelby G.T. 350. For whatever reason, 5R108 intimidated the experienced racer, who begged off driving the car, leaving Gene Hamon with few good options. Sports car star Pedro Rodriguez was on hand, so when Hamon asked if he could handle the Shelby, his reply in broken English was reportedly, “Si, I win.”
And win he did, beating a Shelby American factory G.T. 350R driven by Jerry Titus, and even besting a 289 Cobra driven by Al Goldman. Perhaps it was this commanding performance, or the success of the G.T. 350R models overall that prompted Mexico City racer Freddy van Buren to cut a deal with Gene Hamon Ford for 5R108. Whatever the reason, the Shelby was shipped south of the border, where its blue stripes were replaced with the red and green stripes symbolic of the Mexican flag.
Van Buren Beuren was quite competent behind the wheel of 5R108, earning the 1966 SCCA Southwest Region B-Production title and finishing third in class in the American Road Race of Champions (ARRC) at Riverside. The following year, van Buren Beuren ran the 24 Hours of Daytona with co-drivers Paul Jett and Don Pike, but the team’s efforts would end with a blown engine at the 14.5-hour mark. A month later, at Sebring, van Buren Beuren would take a class win, and he’d cap the 1967 racing season with a pole position and a B-Production championship at the AARC in Daytona. For Shelby American, it was a hat trick: The G.T. 350R had delivered three consecutive championships in SCCA B-Production racing.
The win gave 5R108 some notoriety, and the car appeared in ads for Amalie Oil and Champion Spark Plugs. As the 1960s turned into the 1970s, 5R108 passed through a series of owners, all of whom ran the car in competition to varying degrees. By 1972, its final in-period event at the hands of then-owner Sidney Finkel, the Shelby was little more than a seven-year-old race car, of diminishing value in competition circles.
Though no longer raced, 5R108 was retained by Finkel for the next decade, until rediscovered by Shelby collectors Bill Maney and Lee Wilmot in 1982. A price was agreed upon, and the car was immediately sent off for restoration to its 1967 championship-winning “Mexican flag” livery. Prior to its debut at SAAC-8 in 1983, the car was once again sent to Ford’s proving grounds for testing, perhaps in homage to its development 18 years earlier.
As is often the case with vintage race cars, 5R108 passed through a series of owners from 1983 until 2011, winding up in England for a brief period before landing back with a collector in California. It appeared in several magazines during this time, and once starred in an episode of Victory by Design (“Ford Muscle”), driven by racer and commentator Alain de Cadenet. In 2011, the Shelby was acquired by the Andrews Collection.
Given the car’s status as one of just 36 G.T. 350R models built by Shelby American in 1965, and its 1967 B-Production championship-winning pedigree, RM Sotheby’s predicts a selling price between $850,000 and $1,000,000 when the no-reserve lot crosses the auction block on May 2 in Texas.
For additional details on the Andrews Collection sale, visit RMAuctions.com.
UPDATE (4.May): The 1965 Shelby G.T. 350R sold for a fee-inclusive price of $770,000.
