Lone Star? Mid-engined car by Shelby

I heard a guy who worked on the Shelby Lone Star, a mid-engined coupe with a 351 Cleveland and a ZF built around 1968 ,gave a speech at a Orange County Cobra club meeting recently. Does anyone know who he is? I am curious to find out the facts on that car. I heard it is on the cover of a Shelby parts catalog but only the middle of the car so it is kind of hard to see what it looks like. I saw it in person at a mechancs shop in Hollywood. I think it looked like a Honda Del Sol that was exploded like a pufffish, fat with a targa roof. It was owned by Mike Schoen who wrote the Cobra -Ferrari wars but he sold it without restoring it so I would like to hear the fate of this car, built in England why Ford turned a blind eye to it

PS this is not to be confused with the white mid-engined 351 Ford powered car shelby built in '68 or so. That was a race car. This is a street car.

 

Where are you--I'll send the money for a Lone Star beer.
Seriously, can you ask the owner whether he knows if the car ever got looked at by Ford, i.e. sent to Dearborn for consideration, and if so, why not?The only thing I could find in the Shelby American magazine was in an interview of the late Al Dowd who said after he had to slide across the gas tank to get into the car, he coudn't see why anyone would want it. I was in a club that collected a car with three gas tanks , two of them in the sides, and some members reengineered the car to use only the rear tank because of that same worry, a t-bone collison while you're surrounded by gasoline!
Thanks
Bitzman

 

Re: True GT40s had side mounted gas tanks but...

At least on the original GT40 the fuel tanks were in rubber bags in a stoutly built rocker sill compartment. I don't recall any GT40s blowing up in an accident because the fuel tank was punctured, though there is a great picture of Mike Salmon driving a GT40 that some dummy forgot to close the gas cap lids on after a refuel. The gas flowed out the tanks, got to the back where the exhausts were, lit fire, and the whole car was flames from the gas caps back as he went around the entire course and pulled into his pit again so they could put the fire out.

I also am willing to bet the gas tanks on the sides of the Lone Star were in a structure that was about half the rigidity of the overbuilt steel chassied GT40

 

Lone Star, what's happening to the one off car?

I hard Michael schoen was restoring the Lone Star
one off mid-engined car commissioned by Shelby in England
351 Cleveland, ZF 5 speed.

I expected to see it at Monterey but only found the DeTomaso 70P, another mid-engined Shelby project but that was never raced.The Lone Star was a street car. There is a picture of the cockpit only on the cover of a Shelby parts catalog with a cowboy hatted babe in front blocking off a good view of the car (damn those wimmen....)

Anyhow Schoen wrote the book Cobra Ferrari Wars (now out in reprint) and before this restored a Daytona coupe so he's obviously the right guy to do right by the car but need to know where it is, when it will be finished so I can snap a pic.
Thanks

 

Re: Lone Star, what's happening to the one off car?

I can respect his penchant for privacy. He belongs to a family that has had storied battles involving lawsuits, etc. so has had quite enough of the press.
We are lucky to have somebody with his thoroughgoing approach writing car histories.

 

Lone Star prototype-mid-engined Cobra

In the book by Rick Kopec on Shelby American there are two large pictures of a dark car (probably red but it's black and white photography), a two seater mid-engined car called the Lone Star built in the Sixties. I remember seeing the actual car in a mechanic's shop in Hollywood back in '65. Now it is owned and being restored by Michael Schoen who wrote the book Cobra-Ferrari Wars. Only the center section is visible on the cover of a Shelby parts catalog (the one with the blonde babe in the cowboy hat). My question is---has the car been pictured anywhere else besides the article in Motor Trend? I'm willing to trade some old Shelby factory shots for one or two shots of the Lone Star. I expected it would show up at some venue like Monterey Historic or Pebble Beach by now but maybe the restoration is very exacting and thus taking more time. I wonder if the car was ever shown to Ford execs? One problem with trying to find pictures of it is that there is a replica company called Lone Star so if you type "Shelby Lone Star" into a search engine all you get is the front engined replicas.

 

Re: Shelby Lone Star

I talked to the owner by e-mail a few months ago. I don't think the restoration is done. but when it is, it will be as good as new.
He is a perfectionist. He is not into cars so much anymore as a different philosophy of life but still, in the back of his mind, knows he owns a piece of history. Also as the former owner of a Daytona coupe who saw them go into the megasphere of prices, he knows not to sell too soon.

I wonder what ZF gearbox it uses--straight out of a GT40?

I never confirmed if Ford officials ever even looked at it. I never saw any pictures of it on the Ford test track. Most of the time if you mention the Lone Star to Shelby employees you get a blank look so this is one that was done back in the darkest dungeon.
'Maybe it was the victim of bad timing. Note sure when it was done but I remember Iacocca was fired by HFII and anything to do with Shelby had to do with Iacocca in those days.

The Lone Star was featured in a British magazine decades ago, I thought Radford did it but
Gomm Metal had something to do with it.

I don't think Shelby ever released a picture of the complete car though part of it is featured on a Shelby parts brochure with a fetching blonde in Cowboy had and complementing skimpy attire.