It's an interesting story but part of it is not true - at least according to
Lew Spencer himself.
A year ago last June at the Wine Country Classic vintage race, Lew Spencer
stopped by and visited for an hour or so in our Tiger pits. There he was
asked which Tigers he had raced. Lew said he had only raced one Tiger - the
yellow Shelby Tiger which carried his racing number, 45.
Lew was a car salesman and might have sold the Tiger Dick Guldstrand later
worked on. Lew doesn't remember doing so but "might have".
And the Tiger Dick worked on was not the Shelby Tiger. After Lew had raced
the yellow Shelby Tiger for 6 months, Rootes transferred it from Shelby
American to Sports Car Forum in Columbus, Ohio. Their main driver, Don
Sesslar, had already clinched Rootes another SCCA National Championship in
an Alpine. After three more races in late 1964 the Tiger was stripped and
rebuilt into a new Tiger tub and driven by Don in the 1965 season. He
accrued almost as many national points as all the other Tigers combined.
This car carried the hood, doors, custom windscreen, trunk lid, entire drive
train and cross member from the Shelby car. At Rootes written insistence,
the tub of the Shelby Tiger was destroyed.
Buck Trippel
> According to the author the car was
> originally owned and raced by Lew Spencer of Shelby fame. Lew sold it to
> Art Fimes who took the car to Dick Guldstrand (of Corvette racing fame)
> to
> develop it further for racing. The Tiger had a long SCCA race history
> from
> 1965 - 1981. There is a TRACO dyno sheet from 1974 for a race 260 that
> made
> what looks like 311HP @ 5000rpm. That is probably without the LAT options
> since SCCA didn't allow it back then
>
>
>
> Jeff
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