This is my first Shelby G.T. 350 (about a year before I bought it). The photo was taken in Big Bear, California in December 1965 when the car was brand new. This Shelby was first sold to Gordon Seaward by a Ford dealer, Mel Burns Ford in Long Beach, California. Gordon, at the time, was in the service. Check out the tasteful lack of LeMans stripes and the Mustang wheel covers! Gordon states that he didn't want to be conspicuous with such a high-performance car.
This is the first known photo of #336, my first Shelby, taken by its first owner, Gordon Seaward, who purchased it new in Long Beach, CA. The photo in the snow was taken in Big Bear, CA. He wanted nothing to do with Le Mans stripes or fancy wheels (wanting to 'fly below the radar', he says!), hence the cheesy hubcaps! Gordon was kind enough to share the photo with me, and a few war stories. He was in the service when he purchased the car, then transferred to Alabama. He drove the car all the way to Florida to see his folks, then back to Alabama. Living in Alabama, he quicly realized that he sorely needed a dealer-installed, under-dash A/C system. His new wife hated the car because it was 'hard to steer' (really??). Gordon, like me, also towed a small sailboat with #336. I thought that Ford was so considerate to kindly pre-drill appropriate holes for my new hitch! Little did I know that Gordon had a hitch on it before trading the car! So with an unhappy wife, Gordon ultimately traded the Shelby to an Alabama Porsche dealer. This when the #336 trail goes cold. There's a several month lapse in the Shelby's whereabouts, then...
I found this Shelby in January, 1967 as a used car on a car lot in Manayunk, Philadelphia. Purchase price: $2,795 with 26,000 miles on the odometer. It had worn out Firestone racing tires on 15 X 7 black steel wheels and a dealer-installed under-dash Ford air conditioning system.
So how did the Shelby get from Big Bear, California to Manayunk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? To be continued...[link to Part II of the #336 saga]
