Thursday, October 29, 2009

I recently learned that my granddad had a 1965 GT350, SFM5S294

After my granddad it belonged to my Uncle Kirk (pictured), and he sold it in 1969

Thanks to my cousins Caitlin, Becky, and Bruce for collectively making it possible for me to post this photo!

From my Uncle Bruce:
 "one of the first 500 GT350s actually. He also knew Carroll Shelby somehow and paid 4280 dollars for it if my memory is correct. When he died it went to your Uncle Kirk (in the photo) who had it when he died. 
My dad had put in a Boss 302 engine in it and stored the original motor in Sidnaw where it may or may not be anymore. It had been covered with a tarp but got water in it and one of the cylinders rusted. I may still have the intake and dual pump dual feed carbs from it but not sure. 

Aunt Yvonne had one picture of the car.




 It had no back seat and a spare tire sat where the seat would have been. Blue stripes ran along the running board and the rest was white with Goodyear bluedot tires. It had orange Mallory ignition and Detroit locker rear end that would go bang in a sharp turn when it unlocked. It had koni shocks and the exhaust came out in front of the rear tires straight off the headers. 
The original engine was a 289 cu inch and was very hard to start in cold weather of the UP, so dad put a battery in the trunk and hooked it in parallel to the front battery to turn it over and start in the winter. It handled very well and turned on a dime. It was very fast to around 100 mph and topped out around 135mph at 6800rpm."

I'm blown away at how cool it is that my grand dad had a GT 350, and then one of my uncles after him, and that another uncle has this incredible memory to recall the details so correctly (notice the exhaust, the colors all match his memory from about 55 years ago!)

1 comment:

  1. OMG.. this is one of really nice ones too

    ReplyDelete