Did Shelby produce this station wagon?

I think have unearthed a real “barn find” treasure and thought you might be interested in my story.

I had told my brother in Brady, Texas that I was looking for an old station wagon to build. He called me a few days ago and told me that the manager at Curtis Field Airport in Brady mentioned that he was cleaning some personal stuff out of an old hangar at the airport and that he had a ’65 Fairlane wagon packed away under piles of junk. It had been there since 1970. Then the zinger. He said that it was once owned by the company that made the Shelby Mustang!

I quickly made arrangements and headed down to take a look. When we got to the airport and began walking over to the small hangar in the distance, Joe, the manager explained how he gotten the wagon. He had worked at the airport in Los Angeles as a young man. He decided to make the move to Texas and needed a car that could take his family and pull a trailer loaded with all their stuff. Another employee mentioned to Joe that one of the lessee companies at the airport had a station wagon that was only a couple of years old and had a hot motor in it that could probably pull a trailer well. The company had lost its lease and was moving to Detroit. Though the car was only three years old, it had some commercial lettering on it and had been modified for the company's use. Because they didn’t want to move the car to Detroit, the company, Shelby American, Inc., offered it to him cheap.

Joe bought the car and tried to remove the lettering from the sides, but never got it all off. He drove the car to Texas and used it as a support vehicle around the airport there and it seldom left the grounds. Joe said that it ran like stink and had a lot of “hotrod’ parts on it. It began to smoke and use oil and they parked it in the hangar in ’71 or ’72 and eventually it just got covered with stuff and virtually forgotten about.

After hearing this story, we were about ready to wet our pants as we got to the hangar and opened the door. Sure enough, in the back corner of the dark shop under a pile of old insulation, various aircraft looking parts, some lights and other airport-type equipment was the bent grill of a 65 Fairlane peeking out. The hood was gold and there was a 2X6 board bolted across the front bumper. We quickly began removing the accumulated junk. Despite the gold hood, the car was blue with a white top. And the grill was bent.

The first thing we noticed the 5 spoke American wheels. Then the Mustang bucket seats. In a wagon? And a 4 speed shifter on the floor? As soon as we could get the stuff off of the hood, we opened it. There, as expected was a slightly greasy 289. What we didn’t expect to find was the tri-y headers, aluminum intake and holley 4 barrel. It even had aluminum valve covers. Could this really be an actual Shelby shop vehicle, or even the only Shelby STATION WAGON?!

Though it was dark in the hangar, we dug back to the doors and opened one towards the light. Joe pointed out the faint outline of the letters that plainly spelled: Shelby American, Inc. 6501 W. Imperial Hwy. Los Angeles, Calif. We were ecstatic! We climbed over the rest of the stuff to get a look at the back of the car. Over the rear bumper under the tailgate was more ghost lettering proclaiming “Thanks, Don Burns Ford, Long Beach, Calif.” Joe explained that the guys at Shelby had said Don Burns Ford had given the car to to the company as thanks for an order for 250 cars they used for the cars they did for Hertz.

Wedged into the back of the car was a blue hood. With a Shelby Mustang scoop. And faded white LeMans stripes. There was also a nice grill. It seems that the wagon had had a close encounter with a steel post at the airport in Texas. Joe explained that a wrecking yard had provided the replacement hood and grill, but the new grill had never been installed and the gold hood never got new blue paint.

On further inspection, we found larger than stock sway bars, aftermarket shocks and disc brakes on the front. Pretty rare stuff in 65, especially on a wagon. The exhaust pipes exited just in front of the rear wheels.

So there it is. Looks like Shelby was given a blue Fairlane wagon. The Shelby guys added a lot of the parts they were installing on the Mustangs they were building. They added the push board to push cars around the shop, or possibly race cars at the track. Joe wanted $3000 for the wagon. I offered a little less, but we settled at $2500. When he gave me the title, the previous owner was listed as “Shelby American, Inc”.
I will get some good pictures when we go back to pick it up on April fools day… 