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1968 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang
Plenty authentic by vintage standards

BY J.P. VETTRAINO - AutoWeek Magazine

All Phil Jacobs knows is that the Shelby team once owned his '68 Trans-Am Mustang, and that he has spent thousands of hours researching and completing the car. He's bashed his knuckles and lain on cold concrete, and beyond his family there is little Jacobs enjoys more than driving the car around a racetrack. If some whisper that his car isn't the genuine article, well--frankly, he doesn't give a damn.

It started as a standard 1968 Mustang, pulled with two others from the line in San Jose, Calif., in late 1967, unpainted and probably without engines. All three were shipped to Shelby's shop near Los Angeles, where fabricators turned two into Trans-Am cars for the '68 season. The plan was to finish the third car midyear, and race it as the other two were used up. Instead, Ford shifted Trans-Am fabrication to Kar Kraft in Livonia, Mich. When it came time to replace the originals, more Mustangs were pulled from the Dearborn line and sent to Kar Kraft. The car that would belong to Jacobs collected dust in Shelby's shop.

Shelby's lead driver, Jerry Titus, had won the 1967 championship. Horst Kwech (better known as an Alfa Romeo driver) drove the second car when it was not used for guest appearances by the likes of Dan Gurney and David Pearson. Titus won the class in the season-opener at Daytona, with Ronnie Bucknum codriving. Things Ford went downhill from there, as 1968 began the Mark Donohue/Roger Penske/Camaro era.

Ford's problem? Engines. Dearborn had decided that it would make great publicity hay to build its race engines at the factory. So line workers, supposedly handpicked, started with Boss 302 short blocks and gave them the full race treatment. The engines were shipped to race teams sealed. More often than not, they failed. Shelby took six engines to each race, replacing them in each car after practice and qualifying.


Photo by: Al Bizer
IT SURE LOOKS AND SOUNDS REAL from trackside. Even if Phil Jacobs' ex-Shelby team 1968
Mustang never turned a wheel in genuine Trans-Am competition, it's a fine vintage entry.

 

"And still they'd usually blow them in the race," Jacobs says, "The really frustrating part was that Shelby's cars often had the fastest race laps."

Titus won again late in the season at Watkins Glen, At Riverside, Kwech won the 12th of 13 rounds, but Donohue finished with a record 10 victories.

After the season, Shelby sold the third shell to independent Trans-Am competitor Bill Pendleton. But Pendleton landed a ride with another team and sold the still unpainted shell. It had several owners before it landed with John Hancock of Oregon in the 1980s, "Hancock eventually became very frustrated," says Jacobs. "He knew what it was, but nobody believed him, Even the national Shelby Club had its doubts."

Jacobs, a mechanic at a Ford dealership in suburban Detroit, heard about the shell in 1987, confirmed the serial number, bought the car by wire for $1,500, then arranged to have it shipped--for $1,600.

"I spent the next three years going to swap meets, digging up old magazines and calling people who knew crew members, then calling the crew members, learning about the season and problems they went through, and how the car was put together," says Jacobs. "I was afraid I'd do something wrong if I just started working on it."

Jacobs began building his Mustang in 1990, farming out most of the metalwork to a Ford restorer in Connecticut. He did the rest himself, building the V8 true to the era. Halon fire suppression and an Accusump lubrication system are the only components not authentic to the '68 Trans-Am cars.

"It took probably 20 hours a week for 30 months," says Jacobs. "It was running to the point that I could do driving school in 1993. I drove my first race that year at Waterford Hills [Mich.]."

His engine dynos at 442 hp and 372 Ib-ft of torque. Jacobs says some use more modern engine bits and get more power. Still, he's won four of 12 vintage races. In 1996, at the 30th anniversary Trans-Am reunion at Watkins Glen, he suffered his only engine failure. Shelby would have had a much better 1968 with that kind of reliability.

Jacobs doesn't know how much money he has invested. He has no interest in selling.

"It didn't really race, so that might make it a little more difficult to sell," he says. "There are people who don't like it, who aren't happy when I show up to race. I don't care. I got what I've always wanted. It's a lot more authentic than some of the other cars in vintage racing."

 

 

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Originally formed as the COBRA Club in 1972. Established as a Region of SAAC in 1975. One of the oldest SAAC Regions in the United States