Super Shelby

This week on Muscle car, our project GT 350 returns and will meet another muscle mustang. A 68 Shelby. That's now the car that might have been,

then it's break tech from the race track to the Real World coming up on muscle car.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Muscle Car. My partner in crime isn't here today. So I decided to break out the old Mustang, the GT 350 clone. But first I got a road trip for you.

We're gonna take you to a resto shop on the west coast to see the first retro concept car.

A build that started with a genuine Shelby

and it took it a whole lot further. Basically, it's a whole new car one that Carol Shelby might have imagined back in the day.

Now, some guys, they have a problem with our clone project because it's not an original, but that's ok. The average guy doesn't have the bank account to go out and buy an original one.

So, hey, take matters into your own hands and build it. That's what we're gonna do

and we've got some building to do on this one.

It's a regular old 65 fast back and someone tried to turn into a B production race car,

but they gave up on this one before it was finished.

And what they did do is not all that good check out the way they mangled that floor trying to replace it.

And that lot of rust in the door,

the engine wasn't original. It came with the Hypo 289 but somewhere along the line it got replaced with a 351 Windsor.

We're totally redoing this engine and body. So a lot of these parts weren't worth keeping and we spent the whole day just chopping stuff off and throwing it away.

That 03 51 went down the hall to the guys at horsepower. It's getting fuel injection and a lot more rouse performance cars. So it's gonna be top of the line when we get it back

again. This is not a real Shelby. It's gonna be a clone and that's big business these days. It's a simple formula, light car, big engine, heavy foot on the gas.

You'd be amazed at some of the cars that carry. Shelby's been involved with.

We all know the Shelby Mustang,

but this guy's work goes way back.

This is MGTC that I drove at Norman Oklahoma in 1951 50 years ago. Carol Shelby was one of the top sports car racers in the USA

and Europe. He won the 24 hours of Lemon

and earned an international reputation. He went driving

and built what just might be the original tuna car.

This is where it all started back in 61 with an English sports car. The AC Bristol Shelby tore out that engine

dropped in a 289 and labeled it a cobra.

A weak little Roadster became a real muscle car.

The first step in a long legendary journey that's still going on today.

And a few years later, Shelby took that idea right over the top with the Cobra 427

more powerful than most bets and only two thirds as heavy muscle car magazine said the 427 Cobra was the fastest muscle car ever

and the racing Cobras were even stronger. Shelby's Daytona Coup would run over 200 miles an hour on a long straight away.

Every car on this track is connected to Carol Shelby in one way or another.

MG, Kobe

Gt 40 Viper

Maserati Jag

even Toyota

he drove it, designed it,

built it sold it or just made it better than what it was before. He got it.

Even some little four cylinder Chryslers carried the Shelby name back in the day, the eighties. But in those real Shelby's, let's just say it's still open for discussion. Shelby made up for that when he helped Chrysler develop the Bible. Another classic example of muscle power and attitude.

The original Cobra went back into production in the late eighties. Shelby saw a lot of competitors making copies

and figured it was time for the real Cobra to return in a row. All I hear is screaming for these guys that stole my idea to begin with and it's really quite comical.

And while the cover is still being made, Shelby's latest project is the GTH,

a special edition rental car.

You can get this one from Hertz. It's a throwback to a similar deal that Hertz and Shelby did 40 years ago.

And it's that same approach. Once again, small car Ferocious V8.

Just one more chapter in the Shelby legend.

Now, all of those were factory, but we got one coming up. We're gonna show you guys this guy took a 68 Shelby GT 350

he turned it into what he's calling a retro concept car. It's pretty neat.

Next on muscle car, the making of the Logan edition Shelby

every now and then we find a bill that's so unusual and so cool. We just gotta show it to you. This one is a 1968 Shelby GT

retro concept. It's the Shelby that could have been.

This is what happened with Jerry Logan. Got to wondering what Carol Shelby might have done

back in the sixties.

Jerry wanted to make a kind of super show

something lower, faster, more aggressive and sinister.

So he bought a 68 GT 350 out of a museum, found a builder and got to work.

He had an idea for something called a retro concept car.

It's a genie Shelby with some major changes, more modern, stronger and built to run. I think Shelby did a great job.

I mean, he, he did a little work on the engine.

He, he did the side scoops, he did the hood, he did the trunk and several other things, uh, performance wise.

Uh, but today's environment is a little bit different and today's thinking is a little bit different in regards to what's cool or what's

uh motivating to one's eye.

He gonna get steak pockets too.

So who would want to do all of that to original Shelby?

And why?

Well,

Jerry says he's always been a car guy.

He owns bushwacker,

the leading maker of fender flares for on and off road vehicles

and UNIC

chip developer of high performance chips for cars and trucks.

The Logan edition Mustang comes out of Dave Eckert's resto mod shop out of Portland, Oregon.

It's a combination of fine details and fruit power.

You walk around this car, it's unusual

316 body gap

and a stroke, supercharged, small block,

a

custom interior done in snake skin and leather

and 625 ponies under the hood.

20 coats of custom pearl, metallic paint

and a custom four bar suspension.

You know, it's a Shelby, but it's just a little different and sometimes you have to look pretty close just to realize how special it is. My important thing is the quality needs to be the same throughout the whole car.

So in other words, we only wanna dump a ton of money in this motor

and then stick it in the engine compartment. That's totally stock where the motor outshines the rest of the car

or the paint job is awesome. But you open up the hood and it's unfinished. Underneath.

The first thing that hits you is the stance.

The second thing is the paint.

Then the subtleties start hitting home.

You look at the door and the door scenes, the hood, the hood scene,

the trunk scene, they're all the same

building. The Logan edition took a year and a half starting with that original 68 stripped and prime.

It got a new front spoiler

and a new tail. The whole body sits lower. This baby's just five inches off the deck. The Ecker Bill team put in a whole new suspension custom designed for this car, er C prototype coil overs in the front, er C four bar in the back

to braced up the floor pan just to resist the twist. The engine of this retro concept went in next. The original 302 small block was stroked out to 349 with a Pax and centrifugal supercharger on the top because that's the same brand Shelby used in his race car.

They look beautiful, they got a lot of power but they just don't corner, they don't stop.

So my thing was I wanted to make them hand, I wanna make them stop. I wanted to make them perform like a brand new

um, sports car.

But in the old body, you've never seen a mustang

or probably a street car. This T Jerry said going in on this deal, he wanted the car low shave, French and fast. That meant every piece of trim on the body. Every letter even the Cobra logo had to be flush mounted.

The bumpers were pulled in right up against the sheet metal and everything is arrow, nothing's left to hang out in the wind. They even laid out the stripes with a laser so they can follow the shape of the body.

But this is no trailer queen. It's real home is the highway

that all goes back to Jerry Logan's original idea, take a classic performance car improve on it.

And when it's done drive it

because back in 68 and again today, this one was built to roll

and that's exactly what I wanted to do with this particular car is make it different,

make it smooth, make it

today.

Later on muscle car, the Logan Shelby hits the track. But next, we'll show you how to help your muscle car stop on a dime without spending too many dollars.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the shop. Our Mustang is a classic example of all. Go. No stop. So we're gonna fix that by putting disc brakes on it all the way around

and we're gonna get rid of these drum brakes because I have no idea how they used to stop back in the day. But we can show you a really good inexpensive way or we can take it way over the top.

These are what you get, if you've got 40 grand laying around the ultimate race car, brake, four pistons and everything's carbon fiber, the pads and the rotors.

Each rotor is one really long piece of carbon fiber wrapped and molded into shape.

This is what you see on a million dollar prototype race car. Nothing quite like them in the world

at the price but still expensive.

Pretty much the same set up with an iron rotor.

You'll find these on a NASCAR stock car somewhere like Martinsville where they hit the brakes 2000 times in one race and these things get hot four pistons. Iron rotor 20 grand a set

now for $2200 you can buy these massive 13 inch bear brakes. These babies have got about twice the stopping power of a regular stock system, which is really cool. But we're gonna show you an inexpensive way to stop that car with a stock brake set up.

We pulled the front brakes off our El Camino and took him to Midas for a little tuna.

What's up guys? Hey, how you doing, Bob? Can you kind of wrote it for me? I sure can. You're the man

resurfacing, eliminates any scoring and corrects excessive run out. This really improves your stopping power.

What this is doing right now is it's putting a real nice finish on it.

And then when we get done with this, we'll just block sand it

and then it'll be ready to install on the car.

Dude, we're in there,

we're in there.

Yeah,

this will be the last cut

and that new surface on your rotors, calls for new pads. and if you really want to get the best stopping power on your car,

put some top of the line pads against those shiny rotors and you can really tell the difference.

Now, here's a final step that a lot of brake shops don't even bother with.

And it really is the finishing touch

to get a smooth finish.

The rotor is dressed with 120 grit, sandpaper on a sanding block. After cleaning it with soapy water, the rotor is ready to go

and there we go.

One refinished rotor how smooth it is.

Oh, yeah, those round blades make. They make a nice cot man.

I really like that. Seriously.

Yeah,

Bob

Sputum

is

the gentleman of scholars, Dan. Few of us left. I appreciate it.

Red Bob. It's been a slice, man. See you

coming up on muscle car that Super Shelby on the street and the strip.

Welcome back to the shop. There's a ton of man hours that you see on that Shelby and there'll be a ton

in our clone. But there's a bunch of those hours you just don't see till you get on the track.

Jerry Logan's retro concept. Shelby was just barely finished

when we showed up at his garage in Oregon

and he was still getting used to that race car handling and supercharged small block power.

It feels good, it feels strong.

Suspension is uh

really good,

but city traffic is not the place to find out what the Logan edition can really do.

So we're heading for the racetrack

and getting there is gonna be interesting gives you that

feel of uh

surging power

when you get on it

and everything underneath is tucked up inside the frame rails. So it won't scrape the pavement

even when the Shelby is flying low. Jerry won't talk about the price of this showpiece

but 4000 men, I was involved in this genuine Shelby. We're guessing it's close to a quarter million.

Why dump all this money in just a trailer queen. Why not make it? So it can be shown?

And when you're done showing it,

I have to go backwards not to change the thing, just hop in it and drive it

first run on the strip just warming up

second,

a little bit better

on run. Number three,

the Logan edition is beginning to show us. So

now this is a shakedown cruise

and nowhere near all that. I mean, you can put slicks on there and really dial it in if you want it to be a quarter mile car.

Um, but then again, like I said, it's not about the quarter miles, the overall performance of the car. That's why I'm after Carol Shelby has already seen this car once back in his former life before all the changes.

He's even signed a visor on the passenger side.

Jerry wouldn't mind seeing his car go to a museum someday,

but for right now, he just wants to drive it a little, show it off a lot

and maybe find out what Mr Shelby thinks of it. Now, hopefully, Carol will have a smile on his face and

when he sees this particular car

and, uh,

if I can talk him into it, I'm, I think I'm gonna have him sign the driver's side.

The Logan Edition Mustang is out on the show circuit this season,

we got a lot of work left to do on our clone and that's ok because next week we're gonna concentrate on the crate Camaro. For one simple reason. We need to get this baby done so we can get it in one of you guys' driveway and I'm out of here later.