Roland Dudley wrote:
>
> > I was reading the book "Tiger: An Exceptional Motorcar". It tells the
> > story of the two prototype Tigers, the one by Shelby's company and the
> > one by Ken Miles. The book seems to leave out details of why they
> > bothered with two. They just gave $10,000 to Shelby to do it. Maybe
>
> I'm a little confused here. Miles was a Shelby American employee and
> worked on development for Shelby. Does this mean that Shelby had two
> Tiger development teams?
>
> > have not learned yet. My uneducated guess is that Shelby's attitude was
> > his way was right, period. But, Ian Garrard might have felt that the less
> > modifications the better (to convince the home office of the idea) and
> > wanted to prove it with a conversion setting the engine farther forward.
> > It seems Shelby won out. Is this true?
>
> Shelby wasn't that much of a nuts and bolts guy. His development people
> usually worked out the technical details. What his input on the Tiger
> may have been was how to control manufacturing costs. He may not have
> been much of a techie, but he did understand about money.
>
> > The book also seems to leave out why they gave Shelby a royalty on every
> > Tiger (anyone know how much?). The story says that Shelby was paid
>
> See my last statement above.
>
> > Any thoughts?
> >
> > Jay
>
> RolandRelated to this development history (which is retold in every magazine
article featuring Tigers) I once saw the names of the actual Shelby
technicians that assembled the prototype mentioned. Shelby hisself was
probably fully engaged in damaging his Heart w/wine, women, & song,had
little to do w/the actual installation & came around to take the cash &
the credit. Have any of you west coast Tiger guys ever tracked down the
actual builders to get their insights? I've been a CAT member since the
Early 70s & I've never heard about the actual prototype assemblers,
just that "Shelby" did it. I for one would be interested in hearing
from the guys who did it. Could be an interesting original addition to
the Book of Norman, second printing. Understand 'Ol Shel is using prison
labor to assemble his "new" Cobras. Lower wage costs than NAFTA. AL J.
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