SHELBY MUSTANG: Gone in 60 Seconds!
By: Mike Marino
The Motor City is the capital of heavy metal and horsepower machismo, and it played it's part in blazing trails through the chrome- magnon frontier of muscle and machines. The Ford-Shelby Mustang is an internal combustion legend of iconic proportions and remains as one of the most sought after of the classy chassis. This remarkable racing machines legacy first revs it's engine in Leesburg, Texas in 1923 and crosses the finishline in Michigan in 1970.
Carroll Shelby, born in the flatlands of the Lone Star State, became the Sinatra of the race track Rat Pack with high powered champions that ate asphalt for breakfast. Prior to that he raised chickens and worked the Texas oilrigs before entering the US Army Air Corp during WWII as a flight instructor. It wasn't until 1952 that his pedal to the metal prowess would propel him to the hallowed halls of racing fame.
During the early deades of the 20th Century other developments were brewing in Ionia, Michigan that would eventually cross paths with the meteoric rise of racings most enduring legend and in the process, secure Ionia's own place on the pedestal of power In 1938, local Ionia resident, Don Mitchell was the sales manager for the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Company in Ionia. Don formed his own company called Mitchell Plastics in Owosso at the same time and began supplying the Detroit automakers with trim.
Germanys goosestep continued across Europe in 1942, as Don Mitchell became president of the Ypsilanti Furniture Company and changed it's name to Ionia Manufacturing. The bottom had fallen out of the furniture business like a rotted wicker chairseat, but war contracts kept the the Ionia operation busy supplying products for Jeeps and other military needs.
The war ended in 1945, and by 1948 Don Mitchell had now turned his attention and uncanny business acumen to making wooden bodies for GM and Chrysler. As the age of the Woody dawned on the horizon in Ionia, Carroll Shelby returned to Texas at wars end. After some ill fated business attempts, by 1952 he was ready for a change. A change that would ultimately transform the face of automotive racing and would take Shelby around the world and into the history books.
As the Cold War 1950's began to heat up and business blossomed, corporate wedding bells were about to chime for Owosso Manufacturing Co. and Ionia Manufacturing. This industrial marriage of consolidation took place in 1953 when together, they were united in manufacturing matrimony as the Mitchell-Bentley Corp with Don Mitchell piloting the ship through the waters of capitalism.
The fates struck a financial blow to the company on February 11, 1955 when a devastating fire raced through the automotive trim plant of the Mitchell-Bentley Corp. in Owosso. The company pocketbook was stung to the tune of $2 million dollars in damage, but soon a new facility rose from the ashes like a phoenix near it's former location.
Meanwhile, Carroll Shelby had aced racing and was the darling of the asphalt thrill crowd from California to the UK, but a bad heart put the brakes on his career and he retired in 1959. He now devoted his need for speed energy to successfully develope the Godzilla of all racing machines and in 1965 the first Shelby Mustang hit the streets.
Events back in Michigan were also about to explode in automotive history in 1964. The Ionia plant of Mitchell-Bentley was sold to A. O. Smith Company, a company that produced fiberglass molded body panels from 1964 to 1967 for GMs own wild child...the Corvette. Soon, the Ionia location of A. O. Smith would enter an alliance with Ford Motor Company and their partner, Shelby Automotive that would put them all on the motoring fast track.
At the time, Carroll Shelby was in partnership with Ford Motor Company and was riding high on the waves of theracing development world and began production of his own machines in Los Angeles in 1966. By 1967 he had lost his lease and Ford had the Shelby facilities moved to the A. O. Smith Company in Ionia, Michigan
The party was shortlived and it was all over by 1969 as the Ford Shelby Mustang GT sales began to slow down on the sporty Shelby and 1970 was the final year for the Ford-Shelby co-creation as it rolled off the assembly line and into classic car cult status. The Mitchell Company itself ceased operations by 1999, but it's manufacturing imprint is indelible and it's power pedigree has secured it's rightful place in the hallowed halls of the Motor City Muscle Car Hall of Fame.
Classic Cars, Rock n' Roll, Elvis, Drivein Movies & Route 66! Kerouac, The Beats, Haight Ashbury, Easy Rider & Vietnam!
The Roadhead Chronicles goes from the Cold War Fifties Pop Culture of classic cars and rock n' roll to the spaced out Spare Change Sixties of Vietnam and Hells Angels. Not the usual look at the era, instead It's written by someone who lived it and spent a life of being on the road from his beach bum days in Honolulu to the glitz and dangers of the Sunset Strip in LA, and his purple hazed and double dazed days in North Beach and the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The Roadhead Chronicles also looks at the history of Route 66, Roadside Neon Culture and old diners and dives!
Mike Marino writes in an offbeat and irreverant style with a beat and a cadence that is all his own. His writing style has been compared to John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and Terry Southern and one reviewer likened him to Frederick Lewis Allen on acid! Readers and critics call the book "wickedly wonderful", "delightfully weird" and "automotively sexy."!!
