The 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe - CSX2287

In 1971, a successful race car from the mid-1960s was driven into a California storage unit, and then forgotten by almost everyone for the next 30 years. But that’s not the most interesting part of this car’s story, to say the least.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff works dot Com. I had
Welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. We are
joined with our super producer, Tyler Playing, and today we're
delving into a very fascinating, strange, and sometimes disturbing story.

(00:28):
Oh absolutely yeah. This one's got a lot of history
to it, and I think that over the years, I
would assume that somebody has requested this story. Yes, it
would hand you have been requested by now It's a
story that you know might be familiar with some of you.
Hopefully you'll still listen because I think maybe some new
things will turn up here, at least additional information that
maybe didn't know, because we're gonna read into the story
a little bit from well, I guess outside of the story,

(00:50):
a little bit um into some of the characters involved,
because there's some unusual people involved in this whole thing,
and there have been some twists and turns since the
original story broke many many years go. Yes, today, friends
and neighbors, ladies and gentlemen, fellow gearheads, we are exploring
the strange story of the Shelby Daytona coup. But not

(01:10):
just any Shelby Daytona. Now no, no, we're talking about
the very first Shelby Daytona coup. So um, the Cobra coup,
we should say. And it's chassis number CSX eighties seven,
So that may come up a couple of times, but
that's what that means. That's the chassis number. That was
the very first, I guess, a prototype vehicle that was
developed by Shelby and uh it was built really, I mean,

(01:32):
it's funny to hear how this car was built. And
we'll get into the story just a moment, but this
is a car. It's kind of crude in a way.
I mean, if you look at the coup, it's it's
very very crude compared to the other what were the
other five more? I think they were made there a
total of six made in the complete set. I guess
the first one was the prototype and that was very rudely,
not not rudely, crudely put together on a shop floor.

(01:56):
You know, they drew it out on I think they said,
on butcher paper on on the shop or of you know,
Shelby shop there in California. And I mean it's not
like it has a tremendous amount of horse power. But
it's a race car. It's a full bred race car.
It has three five horse power. It's an eight cylinder
four point seven four leader engine that's been below the

(02:16):
hood there long hood. And uh and it's far more
aerodynamic than the Cobra Roadster. I guess right. And this
car is a big deal. Was the first American car
to beat Ferrari on its own turf, and that's what
it was built for. Yeah, that's what it was built for,
specifically to do that out of spite. It's a Ferrari killer. Yes,

(02:37):
that's successful. In two it fell into the hands of
a celebrity in Los Angeles area. Sure, just given the high,
high level look kind of the overarching view of the story.
And then for thirty years it was just gone poof vanished.
Well some people knew where it was, yes, okay, yes,

(02:59):
yes some did it, but it had it was gone
from the public eye. Most people had no idea what
happened to it. Absolutely, there were very very few that
knew where it was, and so many of people believed
it was lost to history. But let's let's talk about
what this what this vehicle is actually not just Shelby
Cobra Daytona coupe, but also you know the prototype specifically,

(03:23):
it is, of course the brainchild of one of the
most famous men in this story of automotive racing. Oh sure, yeah,
and we've we've actually done in complete episode on this person.
It's uh it's called Carol Shelby Story and we recorded
that back in June of two thirteen. So if you
want to delve kind of deeper into who Carol Shelby

(03:45):
was and uh and what he did, that's where to go.
And we also have done a story on the Shelby Cobra,
which was did yeah, yeah, the super Snake right. Oh man,
what a story that was. That was back in April
of two thousand eleven. And that one some history to
it as well. And uh, let's see who else. It
seems like we've done some other Cobra stories, but maybe not.

(04:06):
I'll have to comb through our archives to find out
exactly what's going on. But you know, this car was built,
as you said, Ben, as a specific road racing car
to beat Ferrari at its own game, really because Ferrari
was just dominating the field. And uh, in this car
built by Carol Schulby. Now he he had stopped racing
by nineteen sixty three. UM, he had kind of given

(04:27):
it up. And he's very successful as a racer. I
mean he had won UM, the the f i A
World Championship, the sports Car Championship in nineteen fifty nine.
But he I think he was driving a UM and
Aston Martin at the time. But but he had beaten
Ferrari in his Aston Martin. Now he wanted to build
an American car that could beat Ferrari at their own game.
And that's exactly what he said about doing in nineteen

(04:48):
sixty four with this Daytona coup and it had to
have certain characteristics that made it UM a lot more aerodynamic.
I guess on the on the track versus the the
Cobra that we normally think up the open sea, the
open roadster, a Cobra roadster exactly, because that's the one
that he had. UM he had helped develop that, right,
I mean he had as a as a racer, he

(05:09):
had helped develop the a c Cobra roadster, and that's
why he had this affinity for that vehicle. But he
knew that to compete at Lama, you know where they've
got this, they got the Mason Straight, which is three
miles long. He knew that it had to be extremely
aerodynamic and not only that just I mean overall aerodynamic
to win, uh, not not just that one race, but
he wanted to win the whole series, right, And one

(05:29):
thing that he did, which was really really clever of him,
is he contacted other people who were experts in related fields.
In particular, we're thinking of a designer named Pete Brock
who helped evolve the form of the coupe to uh,
you know, to reach maximum speed, especially for that three

(05:50):
mile straight you were talking about. And so in their
very first season in nineteen four, they actually did pretty well.
I mean, there were a couple of you know, backslides.
I guess they didn't do you know, they didn't win outright,
but they did do pretty well, especially in the twenty
four hour Lama, which was one of the goals that
they had. They call that, uh, some people call it
the super Bowl of racing really and that's a that's
a that's a big race to win. Um, they did

(06:11):
okay in that one. They had beaten the Corvettes to Lola's,
the Porschees, the Alpha's um but the Daytona's They still
finished behind the Ferrari gt ols for that first year
in nineteen sixty four, but in nineteen sixty five, finally
Shelby took first place, and it was the first American
racing team to do so. It took nine out of
the twelve events in the class with a crucial win

(06:33):
and a and some of the really historic races like
the twenty four Hours of Daytona, UM, the Italian Grand
Prix Manza, you know, the thousand kilometer race held at
the Nurburgring, which at the time, remember that we were
talking about the full Nurburgring, which Jackie, who was at
Jackie Stewart called the Green Hell. Remember that that's quite
a track to to to win on. But did very

(06:54):
well in those and uh and so of course you
know that like he had done it. He had beaten
Ferrari's own in its own game, and Shelby had kind
of made his mark on on the world. I guess
as building this American Uh, well, I guess would be
a it's not really muscle car, but it's a it's
a supercar fighter really, yeah, a Ferrari beater. Yeah. And

(07:14):
for Shelby, this was pretty much mission accomplished. Sure, we're done. Yeah,
the car that he had built in Venice remains the
only one made in America. The other five, because we
said there were six overall, they were sent out to
Italy as frames right under Ferrari's No, isn't it funny?
Built in Modena? Right, so right there in the neighborhood.

(07:38):
I know, how much of a snub is that? I mean?
But but so that that prototype, though, the one we're
talking about, was an American built car, and that's exactly
what he had done in nineteen sixty four. He had
built this thing in nineteen sixty five. Um, this is
when he actually had this, uh like this sensational season
where he won. But let's go back one year. Let's
go back to the csx UM seven had a difficult

(08:01):
time at Daytona, but it survived. Here's what happened. There's
a pit fire and the incident, of course, costs the
car of the race. In Nino didn't win Daytona in
sixty four. Uh. And it also injured somebody, right, Yeah,
it injured fellow named John Olson. This this guy had
previously served as a crew chief for Shelby and he

(08:24):
was a fabricator from New Zealand, or excuse me, New Zealand,
and now I messed it up? How do you say it? Oh?
I don't know. I'm not even gonna gonna get a
venture into that one. Man. I am gonna go back, Scott,
I'm gonna go back. We're off air and find that
amazing pronunciation guide that some Australian listeners sent to All
That's right yet gave us the how to of of

(08:45):
all the towns that we normally miss pronounced here on
our show on a regular basis. It's how we learned
to pronounce Melbourne's right. Well anyway, Uh this so well?
This fire the pit fire? Yeah, this fellow Olsen uh
suffered some pretty serious but first degree burns in a
pit fire in nineteen sixty four. Yeah, and there were

(09:06):
I think it was a refueling incident that happened, and
luckily the car didn't completely go up in flames. I
was saved. I mean, if you look at the photos
from the from that day of what was happening, you
would be hard pressed to believe that car would make
it out of that. Okay, but it did. And uh,
I think mostly what we're seeing there is the the
the smoke from the the extinguishers you know, going around
and maybe the fire was smaller than't we think. Um,

(09:28):
But it also one thing that it did have. It had,
um what what they called lamas stripes, which is are
two white bands that ran the length of car over
something paint called Viking blue. And this Viking blue became
kind of the I don't know, I guess the like
an iconic um color combination, you know, the Viking blue
with the white stripes, that kind of became a thing

(09:48):
right about right around this time, around nine nineteen sixty
five with this Shelby Daytona Cobra coop. So um, I
don't know. I just said a lot of things in
motion for the way American cars look and and present
themselves around the world. I mean, it became a recognizable
thing exactly. Yeah. A lot of a lot of countries
have their own racing colors, you know, I'm really has

(10:10):
read of course, and you know we have the blue
and white combination, whether it's a white car with blue
stripes or blue car with white stripes. Um. But the
Cobra Is again are known for the blue with white stripes,
and um, you know, after this championship, the car, the
prototype car was retired from racing. That's that's about it.
I mean, that's the last time that it was seen

(10:30):
worldwide on tracking where but that, But it wasn't quite
over yet, right exactly because this again, the specific vehicle
we're talking about, CSX to eight seven, the only entirely
American made coop here. Uh. Even though it didn't race,
it's still set some speed records. No. November six of

(10:53):
the same year of nineteen sixty five, it was hauled
out to the Bonneville Salt Flats to race against the clock. Yeah, sure,
this is a record holder. Craig Breed Love. Now I
remember Craig Breedlove's name from, you know, going through the
Guinness Book roll the records. When I was a kid.
I had known the Prent copies and the big thick
versions of those. I love looking at those and all

(11:15):
the car records that were in there, and Craig Breedlove,
I know, was in there several times. But over four days,
this car set twenty three national and international speed records,
and it reached the top speed of one hundred and
eighty seven miles per hour. So um, you know, did
very well, very successful at the Bottle of All Salt Flats,
you know, during that during that month or I guess

(11:35):
the other full month really out there. Um, but after that,
I mean, that was about it as far as like
you know, racing competition all that. I mean, as this
article put and by the way, we're following along from
an article in U in CNN, but we're gonna add
a bunch of information to it as well. Um they say,
as they say, it was kind of like the last
roar of this lion exactly. And now we're starting to

(11:56):
see just how much stuff this vehicle accomplished in such
a cartoonishly short span of time, very very short. I
mean what all six were built between nineteen sixty four
nineteen sixty five, one multiple races, set world records, and
then retired in nineteen sixty five at the very end
of nineteen sixty five. I mean, we're talking about a

(12:17):
two year span. This car made history, really and and
now it's just suddenly, um, I guess you know, to
the racers, I mean, it's kind of worthless at this point.
It's not not really worthless. I mean, it's a car
that they have, you know, some some attachment to but
um not so attached that they couldn't sell it, right,
And that's exactly what they did. And you know, we
should talk about that after the first break smart sponsor.

(12:42):
So then we were talking about the end of an era,
I guess, a very short era, right in a two
year era, if you want to call it that moment.
And so you know, they've got this car, this uh,
it's it's kind of a I wouldn't say pointless, but
it is pointless to them. They're not going to continue
on with this vehicles. They have to move on. They
have to you know, compete with with you know, the newer,
better cars in nineteen sixty six, ninety seven, so on,

(13:04):
which means they have to create new vehicles with new
technology lessons learned from previous iterations. As historically important as
CSX to to eight seven might be. At this point,
it's not practical to race anymore. No, no, no, So
what are they gonna do. They're gonna They're gonna sell it, right,
they're gonna do. They're gonna get rid of this thing.

(13:25):
And they sold it to a guy named Jim Russell,
who was the founder of a toy company called Rust Kits.
Now Ruskits was a maker of um small slack cars
and you know model like model slack cars. Yeah, they
made toy cars specifically, yeah, exactly. So he was a
you know, just a toy company owner. And they sold
it to this guy as a like an old prototype car,

(13:46):
just kind of an old beat up race car for
four thousand, five hundred dollars. That's crazy, And we did
the math to uh so that's four thousand, five hundred
dollars in November of nineteen sixty five. Today that's just
over thirty five grands. Not bad, it is, you know,
I mean for what you're getting, I guess. But you
gotta remember this is just a race car. It's not

(14:08):
really a car meant for the street, although that changes soon,
very soon. So Jim Jim Russell eventually sells this vehicle
to another really interesting character, and this is the guy
that we're going to talk about, um a little bit
of length, but not not not too in death. Really,
I mean we're not really music show, ben really, but
but we're gonna we're gonna try for just a moment

(14:30):
to talk about music. How about that? Alright, let's do
So this car ends up in the hand hands of
a very eccentric music producer by the name of Phil Specter,
and Specter at the time was just twenty six years old.
And now this is uh, this would have to be, um,
nineteen sixty six when he sold it, So it's very
soon after when when um, you know, after Jim Russell

(14:52):
had purchased it, he sold it to Phil Specter because uh,
Phil Specter was born in nineteen forty and I think
he's seventy seven today right now, and um, this is
kind of funny. Now Specter had a different vision for this.
Now he's twenty six. He's a a music producer and
should we just talk about him for just a moment
before he was to get into this, because he does
some interesting things with the car. I'll tell you that.

(15:14):
Al right. So Specter, as I said, he's he's about
seventy seven right now. He's he's still around. Now. You
may have heard Specter's name in the last seven or
eight years. And this is kind of a new development
the story because the one that the story that we're reading, um,
the article that we're reading from, I think all this
kind of came around, you know, we started hearing about
seven around I'm gonna say two thousand three somewhere around there.

(15:37):
That might have been when we first started hearing about it. Uh,
but it gets there's a twist to this whole thing
that happens around two thousand eight, two thousand nine, or
maybe even two thousand nine. I would say, Um, Phil
Specter was convicted of the second degree murder of Lana Clarkson.
Now that was an actress in Hollywood. And uh, and Phil,
I don't know he was married at the time. I

(15:59):
mean he still is married. Um, he had this mansion.
There's a really strange circumstance where they found a lot
of Clarkson dead in a chair in his entryway. She
had been shot I think through the mouth, yeah, and
the she had her broken teeth were scattered across the carpet. Yeah,
And there was like a revolver at her feet. And
I think that the I want to say it was

(16:20):
I'm just trying to recall this from the top of
my head or ben, but I think that his driver
called called the emergency services, and in the background, Specter
can be heard saying something like, what was it been?
I think I've killed someone? Yeah, So he they hear
that in the background, but then later he would deny
the whole thing and say that it was just a
suicide at tapped on her, well, suicide on her part, Yeah,

(16:43):
he called an accidental suicide. Said that she kissed the
gun the driver, Andriano de Selza also said that he
saw a specter come out of the back door of
the house with a gun in his hand. Uh. He
posted a million dollar bail because he was, you know,
obscenely rich from his musical success. He's unbelievably successful, I
mean at this time, so this is such a strange

(17:05):
thing to happen now he was of course, he wasn't
twenty six at the time. He was much older when
this happened. But he, uh, he was very very successful.
He worked with people like like the Beatles on on records.
I mean, he created the wall of sound that we've
heard about where that's what what the uh, I'm not
gonna try to even describe exactly what that is, but
it's this overpowering sound that everybody became uh like a

(17:27):
fan of, you know, everybody's fenual coherent wave. Yeah, that's right,
And that's the reason why we hear music the way
we do now is because the Wall of Sound. It was.
It was kind of invented by Phil Specter. And he
started out really really young, like in high school young,
with a group called the Teddy Bears, and he had
lots of number one songs in the US and UK,
you know, as as a producer. Um but again convicted

(17:49):
of killing this um um, this this actress of second
degree murder. He's put away for a long time. He's
in prison right now. He's serving a I think it's
a nineteen to life sentence, and I think he won't
be up for parole for like another eleven years, so
he's gonna be eighty eight if and when he ever
gets out, which I don't I don't know if he
ever will at this point. But interesting character. Take a look,

(18:12):
if you get a chance to take a look at
the photos of him, and I'll tell you why he
has such an unusual look, because you'll probably notice something
really strange. His hair is really really strange. And I had,
along with everybody else, had kind of laughed a little bit,
you know, chuckled a little bit when you see him,
because he wears these outlandish wigs, right, and I thought,
what the heck is up with these wigs. Why, because

(18:33):
it's always changing. It was always looking different. Sometimes it
was like, um, a giant afro wig. Another time it was,
you know, like a shorter way. It looked like a
little bit like Rod Stewart back in the day, you
know that kind of wig. And it changes around quite
a bit, lots of different looks. And it used to
be dark, then it's light and all this. Well, I
wondered what the heck was going on with it turns
out he was in a horrific accident that nearly killed

(18:55):
him in in ninety seven. I think it was no, no,
it didn't burn. He went through the windshield of his
car in nineteen seventy seven. Now not this one, not
the Shelby Cobra that he eventually owns, the Daytona Coup
that we're talking about. But he went through the windshield
of his car, and I guess he had to get something.
Like they said it was like three hundred stitches on

(19:15):
his face and four hundred on the back of his head,
So he had seven hundred stitches on his head. And
that's the that's the story that I've heard or that
I've read about. And because of that, because of the
scarring and his unusual uh you know, the the scars
like be and you can't grow hair on those. That
leaves his hairline looking really bizarre. And uh so he
decides to wear these wigs, these outland his wigs, and

(19:37):
I had again during the trial, everybody kind of cracked
up about it. And if you look at his mug shots,
they look horrible. I mean, he doesn't have the wig
on and his hair is just a stringy mess, and um,
you can't really see on his face evidence of the scars,
but there might have been some some cosmetic surgery and
I'm not sure, but um, that kind of speaks to
why he wears what he wears, that unusual get up,

(19:59):
and you know what the it's all about. And he
was really eccentric. He was kind of a recluse for
a while. I know he stayed out of the public
eye for quite some time. Yeah, Okay, without without diminishing
the guy's contributions to American music, which fundamentally means contributions
to world music. Uh, we have a ethical responsibility to

(20:25):
note that he was a real pill, had a history
of incredible violence, multiple arrest and these are in the
days before the internet. You know, when a lot of
people with power or celebrity could just get away with
stuff and it wouldn't be in the news cycle. Absolutely,
So I just want to say categorically, he is a

(20:45):
bad person. Yeah. I guess it's great tasting cars, but
a bad person. Okay, So let's get back to the
Shelby Because he bought this car. I bought this old
race car, right, So I'm not sure that he bought
it for You're right, You're right, because that's what the
rust Kits founder bought it for. Yeah, so it may
have been a little more, may have been a little less.
I'm not exactly sure. I don't I don't know what
the price was. But um, he had this thing he

(21:08):
got He got this thing when he was twenty six
years old. So he's a young guy in uh. Um,
I think it's he lives in Lahambro, I think I
think that's right. Um, but somewhere around Venice, California, where
it was built, where it was originally built. Um, that's
where Carol Shelby shop was. And uh again, twenty six
year old. He's you know, cruising the Sunset Strip in
this in this old race car. He's driving it on

(21:28):
the street, which he really shouldn't be doing, but he is.
And he had taken house paint, yellow house paint and
painted on the driver's door the records that it had
held in Bonneville, but he exaggerated them. They weren't the
honest records. So I don't know why he felt the
need to exaggerate the records. I wish I had a
print that showed me what that says. And I remember

(21:50):
seeing an article many years ago where was the close
up of the of the supposed records that he painted
on the door. And again, this is kind of a
sloppy job done with a you know, a paintbrush by
by Phil Specter himself. Um. And you'll see it in
the original photos, you know, of the car before it
was cleaned up, you know, before we talked about where
it went to. We'll get to that. But you can
see the yellow print on the on the driver's door.

(22:11):
That's no longer there. They cleaned that all off. But UM,
I wish I could find out what that's said, because
why why would you feel the need to exaggerate you know,
twenty three national and international speed records? Why why would
you bother with that I don't know, it seems like
that's that's pretty good on its own, right. Well, Uh,
there had to be some truth to the exaggerations because uh,

(22:33):
Specter was sure driving the thing like it was in
the middle of a race every time he had the ignition. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
he he He pretty much left it alone. I think
maybe they had he had done some upholstery work to
it or something like that, and that might even have
been Jim Jim Russell, they've done that. He racked up
so many tickets that his lawyer told him he needed

(22:53):
to get rid of it. His legal team told them,
so he's you know, he's he's creating he's making himself
into a nuisance in this car in California on the
streets because it's a race car. It's it's a really
fast car. And uh and I guess you know, the
thing is it wasn't really a smooth ride, of course,
because again it's a race car. And the other thing

(23:14):
is that, of course, you know, with that engine up front,
it's a race engine. It just really really got hot
inside it after just a couple of miles. So that
was one of the get um A couple of things
that he wanted to fix on the car. He didn't
want to want to retire it. He wanted to continue
to drive this car. So you know, his uh, his
lawyer was telling him otherwise. But there was a couple
of things that he wanted to fix. You know. He

(23:34):
wanted to, you know, make sure it wasn't getting quite
as hot anymore. He wanted to make a little more drivable,
a little softer ride. Um. I don't know about quiet
and get down, but you know, someone eventually wanted to
quiet it down. I know they had to weld a
bunch of mufflers on the thing just to smooth it
out a little bit. But um, you know, overall, this
was not a car for the for the street. And
so finally his lawyer gets through to him and says,

(23:55):
you gotta get rid of this thing, and he agrees,
all right, I finally gotta get rid of it. But
someone off is him, Uh what was it? An extremely
low number for scrapping the car. Eight hundred bucks, eight
hundred dollars, And that sounds like something I don't know,
it seems like what they would offer you right now
for just any old pile of junk car, right, I mean,
the scrap car. The you're pretty much just getting it
for weight at that point, for metal weight. So they

(24:17):
offer him eight hundred dollars for the car to scrap it.
And I'm glad. I'm so glad that he didn't do that.
Everybody's glad that he didn't do that. Yeah, Instead, he
sold the car to his bodyguard, George Brand, for a
thousand dollars. I've gotta also ask you this, Scot, Sure,
do you know anybody who had a bodyguard when they
were twenty six? Oh? I don't think I do. Maybe

(24:38):
we just living in different world, Tyler, do you know
anybody had a bodyguard when they were twenty six? He's
thinking about it. That's a hard note from him. Yeah, well,
I don't know. I mean, you any idea like anybody
at all. I mean I guess technically people in jail, Yeah, technically, sure,
they have a lot of bodyguards. But I don't think
they sell the cards. I don't think it's the same thing.
So he sold this card to his bodyguard for a

(25:01):
thousand dollars, and about right there is where for the
next several decades the car disappeared. Sure, yeah, you know
what we should talk about that after our second break. Uh, Scott, Okay,
I'm I'm of two minds about this. I'm on the fence.

(25:24):
Should we talk about the mystery or should we tell
people what actually happened? Oh boy, let's talk about the
mystery just for a moment. Okay. So, so here's the
scoop on the on the mystery. You know, he the guy,
the bodyguard, George Brand. He had given this car to
his daughter, and her name was Donna O'Hara. And the

(25:46):
strangest thing about what don O'Hara did with his car,
I mean, it's again, it's this this race car that
holds all these national international speed records. She takes the car.
Of course, you know it's being traded now at this
point for a thousand dollars. I think I've heard other
stories where it traded hands a couple of times between
them for a couple of hundred dollars here and there.
It is probably just a way to get cash every
now and then, you know, trade the car back and
get it back again. And a strange, strange situation around

(26:09):
this whole thing. But let's just say that this thousand dollars,
say it was the last one he had given it
to his daughter don O'Hara. She did something that a
lot of people consider unthinkable. She put it into a
storage unit out in California and she just simply left
it there for thirty years and paid rent on this
every month. Every single month she wrote a check or

(26:29):
you know, paid the rent for this car for thirty
years in storage. Can you imagine the price, I mean,
that's that's ridiculous for a car. And you know, at
the time, no one really thought it was worth anything.
I mean the very most we've seen this car trade
hands for. So what was this uh paid rent three?
That was three months, I guess. So that's thirty years,

(26:49):
I guess. So. Yeah, so no one knows why she
did it. Yeah, no one has a clue, right, No,
I mean it's really strange. I mean it's it's just
an odd behavior. But again, this person is a little
bit odd. I mean she really is. And a couple
of people knew where this thing was, you know, they
knew what had happened to it. I think it was
a secret. But yeah, there were people in the NOD. Yeah,

(27:09):
I remember we earlier on we said, you know, it
had gone away for thirty years, and no one really knew,
but there were just a couple of people that knew
about it. Carol Shelby happened to be one of the
people that knew about it. And you know, somewhere along
the line he he wanted to maybe get the car back.
And I don't know why that was. I mean, she
had several offers for this car. We're talking about two
million dollar offers for this car. Towards the end, right

(27:30):
someone someone offered her as much as two million dollars
and she said, no way. She completely rebuffed this. Now
there's a story of Carol Shelby himself going to visit
Miss O'Hara at her house and she would even open
the screen door to talk to him, you know, And
here he is offering her two million dollars for a
car that's sitting in storage that she's been paying for
for thirty years at this point. So people just couldn't

(27:52):
communicate with her full stop. And as a result of this,
the CSX two to eight seven remained untouched from seventy
one to two thousand and one. And we want to
take just just a quick moment here to let you
know what happens when a car is in storage. For
that long. So Scott, in the past, you and I

(28:14):
looked at what happens to cars when they are stored
in time capsules, and in almost every case the cars
are pretty much trashed and totaled. When you know they're
finally dug up. Oh sure, years later, they're a disaster, right,
I mean, the rubber is all rotted, and anything you
know that had fuel in it is that you know,
any of the lines or anything, they're all gummed up.

(28:35):
It's it's just just it's not a good thing to
leave a car alone for that long. They really do
need to be driven and cleaned and you know, maintained.
I guess along the way, and this one was not
being maintained. However, I want to point out that everything
was original in the car was still original on the vehicles.
So we're talking about like your you know, tires that
were still on it from when spect drove it in
nineteen sixty five or six x six, I guess, and

(29:00):
um everything again, no parts had really been changed. I
think they had changed a little bit of the upholstery
inside there was something done to that, and I think
I believe your correct, and again I think somebody had
well did some mufflers onto it at some point just
to quiet down. I heard rumor somewhere and I don't
know where this is in my notes here, I'll never
find it. But someone said they had to weld eight
mufflers onto the thing to quiet it down. I don't

(29:20):
know if, I don't know if I believe that. But
they claim it was eight mufflers. No, there's no way,
there's no there's no way. Yeah, I don't know. Strange um,
but yeah. So, but the point remains there was very
little after factory work done on it. Oh yeah, very
very much. It's a it's an original condition, you know,

(29:41):
American sports car has just left alone for thirty years.
And that's where we see the story take another turn
in two thousand and one. Around two thousand one, a
lawyer named Martin Ears helped out a client of his
named Frederick Simeon. Is that correct? Simeon is right? Yes,

(30:05):
and he was a he's at the time, he was
a retired neurosurgeon. So this guy had probably had some
money in his hand, right, I mean, but they won't
tell us how much he offered O'Hara for the car. However,
you know, this is all kind of through this lawyer.
You know, this is all happening through the lawyer. It's
an amount that they say they don't want to disclose,
but they think that it was somewhere around four million

(30:25):
dollars he offered her for the cars. This is double
the offers that were coming prior to this. You know
that she was just simply not even opening the door
for really four million bucks for a car that she
had just left behind. You know, it's something very strange.
But um, as as Fred Simeon says himself, you know,
it's a very realistic offer. This is what the car
is really worth. It's got that much history, that much heritage,

(30:45):
and it's a piece of American history really, so um
it has to be saved. And around two thousand eight later, uh,
Fred Simeon, you might recognize the name, He opened up
something called the Simeon Automo Museum Automotive museum in Philadelphia,
and uh, well we'll tell you about that in a
little bit. I mean, it holds a part of this.
But the Simeon Museum, I just want to mention this

(31:08):
for briefly app here before we forget. That's a place
where he has a bunch of race cars. Lots of them.
I mean, I want to say more than sixties, seventy
eighties somewhere around there. All of them he will at
some point drive. He'll he'll gather, He'll gather them up
in some way like a grouping that makes sense somehow,
like American race cars, let's say so sort of theme
or genre exactly, like maybe Lama cars or whatever. But

(31:30):
he has a he has only race cars in this museum,
and he will take them out. And I don't know
what the schedule is um this, I can't remember it's
monthly or weekly. But he drives all these vehicles. He
takes them out of the parking lot. He allows the
public to come out and watch. And of course they're
not really raced like their full potential. They're not completely
opened up because he wants to preserve and protect them.
He wants to make sure that you know, they they

(31:51):
remain intact. I guess he doesn't want to smash them
up because a lot of people, you know, say, well,
why don't you actually racing these cars? Why don't you
take him to the track and recite And he says, well,
I you know, I I like them too much to
to destroy them. I don't want to do that, but
I do want people to see them. And I guess
when you know you're there at that museum and you
see them in action, you know, out in the parking
lot or whatever, even if it's just you know, starting
them up and revenue a little bit, uh, that gives

(32:13):
you a completely different feel about the car. And um again,
that's gonna come into play a little bit later the
Simion Museum. As you can. I'm sure everybody can guess
what's going on with that. But so that's the guy
that offered up four million dollars for this thing. And okay,
so this is back again. This is going back to
what two thousand one somewhere around there or two somewhere

(32:34):
two one? All right, and this is where the story
takes another little twist, actually a big twist, Tyler. Could
we get a sinister music queue? Perfect? Alright? It has
to do with Donna O'Hara, and Donna O'Hara had a well,
you know, she she had some I think there were

(32:55):
some mental issues there. There there's some there's some things
going on with Donna. And it was Sunday, October two
in the year. Actually it's the year two thousand, so
it's back a year earlier than we had thought. And
the sale had happened prior to two thousand. The sale
between O'Hara and Um Frederick Simeon had happened prior to this.

(33:15):
She had apparently she had willed um the proceeds from
this sale to her mother. And then one morning she
went out early in the morning, took two gallons of
gasoline with her, went out to some uh I think
it's like a horse trail out in the out of
the woods somewhere, took a couple of this is the
weird things. She took a couple of bunny rabbits with her,

(33:36):
and she completely covered herself in gasoline and the rabbits
and then lit herself on fire in a culvert somewhere.
And uh, I guess she had unexpectedly, you know, I mean,
you would expect this, We would all expect this, but
I think she expected to stay in place, you know,
kind of hidden while she'd let herself on fire. This
is this is called self immolation to be discovered. Yeah,
she didn't want to really be discovered. So she had

(33:57):
done this to the rabbits as well. We don't know
why that happen, and we don't know why any of
this really happened. But she had lit herself on fire,
and I guess she had run some distance, so they
found her like, you know, thirty ft farther away from
where she had lit herself and there was another gallon
of gasoline that was left behind, so they know where
she started from. And uh, you know, a couple of
police officers you know, came upon her in the morning,

(34:18):
this is like right after dawn, and she was asking
them to just you know, she was telling them like
just shut up, stay away from me. I just want
to die. Just just leave me alone. It was there
her request to just be left alone and die. She
had burns on of her body from this, so you know,
who knows what demon she was she was fighting here,
But she had again kind of prepared for this by

(34:40):
willing the proceeds of the sale to her mother and
had kind of made sure that everything for that transaction
was in place. But there was still some questions. Yes,
the owner's demise sparked a legal battle around the car,
and this went on for months and the According to Simeon,
the after math of this sale was more difficult than

(35:02):
the sale itself, because when word got out amongst the
auto community that the car was discovered and was being
purchased by a private party, a lot of people desperately
wanted to buy it for themselves and asked the judge
to put it up for a public sale, which would
disregard that agreement. And also, you know it should go
without saying that on our part um, you know, we

(35:24):
have immense difficulty imagining how it would feel to lose
your daughter, like for this mother to lose your daughter
and then have to go to court with people over
a material possession. Yeah, yeah, and this is we're talking
about again, a car that when it was put away,
it was worth probably about ten grand I mean ballpark,
just just a ballpark figure, probably less. Really, now it's

(35:46):
worth four million dollars and that's a that's a significant
asset that they have to the US. So there's going
to lead to a long arduous trial, probably right. And
so everybody started claiming their piece of the pie, or
they're there the saying explaining why they felt they deserved
the car. Even it turns out Phil Spector himself, Yeah,

(36:06):
he comes in with with his lawyer, Robert Shapiro fame. Yeah,
so that guy's back again, right, and he claimed ownership,
saying he never sold the car to the bodyguard, but
he had only given it to him for safekeeping, and
so he's claiming ownership as well. Now Specter of course later,
I mean, he's not going to be a player in
this for very long because in two thousand nine, that's

(36:26):
when Spector was put away for this murder, second degree
at the second degree murder. Right, So he's currently in
prison as we know. But in two thousand nine, that
part of the story ends. Um. But but as as
Fred Simeon says, you know, everybody's gonna have a story
of why they own a piece of this four million
dollar pie, right, you know who who rightfully owns it?
And even though he had purchased it from Donald Hare
at least that's what that's what the story is. You know,

(36:48):
he had been sold this car legitimately, and the judge
found in favor of Fred Simeons, so you know, it
was in fact his vehicle at the end of all this. Um. Now,
it's like what sixteen years later after the sale, I guess.
And you know, the other five Daytonas ones that were
all produced in Italy. They're all in the hands of
private collectors somewhere around the world. You know, they're kind

(37:09):
of scattered here and there. But in two thousand nine
one of them sold at auction for seven point five
million dollars. So, and that's one of the five that
were built elsewhere. Now I know those are rare, but
the prototype itself, that's the most rare of all. That's
the one American built car. That's the very crude, very
crudely put together, you know, kind of rough around the

(37:29):
edges vehicle. But it's probably worth way more than seven
a half million, so much so that it's difficult for
us to put a price tag on it. Uh. We
also have to mention that, unlike the other five vehicles,
this one, yeah, is in its original state, no repainting,
even no parts replaced. You can get interior photographs of

(37:51):
the vehicle, and it's not super impressive. Yeah, I mean,
this car is, you know, taking its licks, I guess.
I mean it's it's it's been on the race track,
it's been on Bonneville. Um. It was in the hands
of Specter for a while, you know, just around town.
It looks like the front end was kind of caved
in a little bit, so they've had to hammer that out.
But we know, we haven't told them yet. This car
is currently on display and I think everybody kind of
knew this early on, but at the Simion Foundation, the

(38:14):
Automotive Museum, so you can go and look at this car.
You go see this car, and you know, Fred will
start up the car and drive around in the parking
lot occasionally. And it's in much better condition than when
it was found. If you look at the original photos
when it was you know, dragged out of the storage
unit with the yellow paint on the door, it's really
really rough. But you know, the the great thing about
this car again, this is all part of the history

(38:34):
this thing. It's an excellent condition right out of storage.
I mean, it wasn't in bad bad shape. It wasn't
like one of the Times capsule cars. It was a
little bit better um in that you know, it wasn't
buried underground, so that's one thing, right. But it has
everything original about it. It's not missing any of its parts.
It has everything except for you know, I think there
was that Here's here's where that quote came from about

(38:55):
the mufflers. I'll al rate it now. Um, they I
think they had the interior, a little bit of the
interior redone. I'm talking probably like the seats or something
like that, maybe just the upholstery, and I think getting
rid of those uh the writing on the side of
the car. Yeah, they did that, Specter done in house paint. Yeah,
they had the paint had oxidized a little bit on
the car as well, So they buffed that out and

(39:16):
it was fine. Everything came out fine. Uh. They had
bumped out the front bumper, you know, they had to
hammer that out, and I think there was they said
maybe just a tiny little bit of wiring that they
had to replace, and there was something else there was
another maybe a rubber piece or something that they had
to replace. But um, very very little was changed on
the vehicle at all. It's it's primarily the way I
mean just about the way it came out of the

(39:36):
Venice shop from from Carol Shelby. So again this is
this is pretty good. I mean after you know, he
had spector had it for about five years in his hands.
He didn't completely mess it up in that time. And uh,
and you know Russell from Rusk, it's Jim Russell he did,
he hadn't he hadn't really damaged it all. He barely
had the car really um And then of course you

(39:56):
know Donna O'Hara, who had the car for thirty years,
she didn't do anything with it. So the car is
an excellent shape. It's a really really good condition, which
is surprising giving the strange, tumultuous journey it took to seventeen.
You can read Simeon's accounts of what they had to
do with the car, and it is, uh, it is
a surprisingly short list of improvements. I think the biggest

(40:18):
thing would be what do you see? Brake lines and wiring.
That's right. It was brake lines, that's right. Brake lines
and just a little bit of wiring. And that was
about it. And of course you know that uh, that
Tijuana interior that they had put in, you know, which
is just really the upholstery on the seats. I think, so, uh,
you know, not not anything major by any means, and
it was all easy to overcome get it back to
its original shape. Now been one thing that we need

(40:39):
to do is mentioned kind of like where this what
significance this thing holds in history? We've told you the
story of the and you know, of course it's you know, incredible,
I guess, skyrocketing value, you know, up to four million
plus whatever it was worth or whatever it is worth now.
But there's more, Yeah, there's more to it. This, this
car uh CSX seven was the very first car to

(41:00):
ever be put on the National Historic Vehicle Register here
in the United States. And that's that's significant in its
own right. And there are very few cars that are
on this list now. I think that when this article
is written, there were only seven on the list. But
now I think I took a look at the site
the other day and it's a little bit tough to
determine because they've treated them visually in a different way.

(41:20):
It looks to me as if they're about nineteen cars
on this list now at this point. And you know,
things like the Tucker is on there. You know that
the prototype, the tin goose, um, the Myers Manx is
on there. That's the original, that's the doom Buggy design.
You know, you probably it could just say doom Buggy
and you would picture what this Myers Manx looks like.

(41:41):
A lot of them, some of them are race cars,
not all of them are race cars, but it's a
it's a very um exclusive list to be on, and
this was the very first car to ever be added
to that to that register. So again that has a
significant all significance all its own. UM. I don't know, Ben,
it just seems like this car has such a fascinating history.
It's like, um, as a lot of people will say

(42:03):
long and of course I know why they say it,
but I mean, it's like it's like a Hollywood script. Really,
it's like it's like a movie. Yeah when you're reading it,
but I'm wondering why this hasn't been a movie yet. Uh.
This was also named Car of the Year in at
the International Historic Motoring Awards. Oh and just to go
back to what Scott pointed out that I think is
incredibly important, Uh, the National Historic Vehicle Register. It's on

(42:29):
the same level as you know, the kind of historic
registers where we could expect to find the statue of
Liberty Space Shuttle. You know, we've said it before and
we're gonna say it one more time because it's worth
mentioning here. When you see the car, it's pretty crude
in the way that it was it was created. It's
not you know, it doesn't look like somebody made it
in their garage. I mean, it's a little better than that,
but um, it was a race car, was constructed on

(42:51):
a shop floor, it was designed on butcher paper. But
the thing is this was built right at the end
of an era when you could build something like this
and still compete at an international level. And that's really unique.
That's one of the reasons why it's on this National
Historic Register. It's like one of those like now it's
too late to do this, you can't go back. But
this is, you know, a remnant of the time that
was like this is this is what what was possible

(43:14):
at one time. It made a lot of people kind
of you know dream really, I mean that you know
that they could do something like this, because that's exactly
what Carol Shelby did. He had a dream, really and
he put it together and he did it. He achieved
that goal within two years and uh and then moved
on to other things he did he very much did,
and it remains an iconic thing today. We're so fortunate

(43:36):
to be able to go and visit this vehicle. And
you know, I think of you and I talked a
while off air. I do have a trip to Philly
in my future. So now it's cheese stakes in the
CSX to seven all the way head over the Simion Museum.
Huh yeah. See, if I can talk the guy into
driving it around a lot a little bit, I should
probably email him first. What do you think? I would

(43:59):
think that would be good. You'll like the surprise that
guy with that, you know, like, hey, Fred, I thought
maybe i'd take the CSX out. What do you think? Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. And you'd say, like, I haven't driven
a clutch in a while, so maybe a little rusty.
I would say, I'm gonna get I'm getting my license soon,
and I think this would be a great carter practice
on Chish. Yeah, good luck, Hard and Feathered run out

(44:21):
of town on the ail. Well, you know, and that's
about all I have on the on CSX seven for now.
What do you think? Yeah? I think so. And we
hope that you have enjoyed this show because we had
a lot of fun doing it. Um. We also have
an announcement for everybody uh tuning into car stuff, which
is that Scott and I received received word from our

(44:45):
Grand Pubas that we are moving on to other projects.
Grand Pubas, I like that. Yeah, I thought that was
a good cool phrase. Yeah. Absolutely, we're we're going to
be called out for other duty. I guess we're going
to be working on some shows that you're going to
see in the near future, not not extremely near, but
near future. And it's some stuff that we have some
interest in. It's not car stuff anymore. We're going to

(45:08):
uh probably wrap it up with this one. This is
probably gonna be the end of it for the for
you know, at the end of here is we go
inteen but in if you like here in our voice,
you can you can find us on other shows. And
we can't really make any of that public right now,
but it will be something that's I think a lot
of our audience will really like, we'll enjoy. We can

(45:28):
say it would truly be a crime not to tune in. Yeah, man,
that's a good way to put it. I guess maybe
our listeners can read between the lines on that the
cryptic message that you do. And before we head out
and then put put this show on the on the
road for a little while, we want to sincerely think

(45:54):
all the fantastic people that we have met through these shows.
We've been so fortunate to meet you, Glenn Beck, Josh Baker,
Rudy Smith, Rudy Smith. Of course, Rudy, Uh, please keep
writing to us. Simon Workman who came out to see
us during the Raleigh North America event that we did.
And oh we should thank the Raley North America people
because they've really helped us out. The organizers, the Tony,

(46:16):
the people that you know participate in that. Um yeah,
we said Rudy Smith already, I think, um L Bucher,
if we want to go all the way back right Clayton,
I mean it like Clayton, Josh Baker, We we We've
had so many people that we correspond with regularly, and
I know we're going to forget a lot of names
right now. We don't mean to, but this is just
kind of sprung on us very recently. So we're trying

(46:38):
to uh keep the classy. I guess as we as
we leave here. I don't want to cheer up or anything, Ben,
but it's been a long run. I've really enjoyed working
with you, and hopefully we'll get to work on future
projects together. I think we're going to. I hope so too,
because usually do most of the work, so that is
not true. I've I've I just want to tell you
that at the last uh, well it's nearly ten years

(47:00):
this nine. We've been doing this for nine years and
one month now, and UH it's been a pleasure to
sit across the table from you and uh and I've
just really enjoyed every single conversation we've had. And and
I hope that comes through in our podcast. I hope
that you know, if you're a relatively new listener, you'll
go back and listen to our catalog because we have
what's approach you. I would guess we have nine plus

(47:20):
shows at this point, if I had to guess somewhere
around there. And please be um, please please be kind
when you get to the oldest era when we started out,
because UM, one thing, I wanted not to turn this
into a big thank you fest, but UM, you know,
when I started at How Stuff Works, I started as

(47:43):
an intern, right you had a legit real job here.
I was an intern, and UM, I really really wanted
to be able to um to have a podcast or
to pursue this thing, which was you know, I see
you into the show. I'll be ended. It was a
wild ass idea for a lot of people. And they
thought this will never work. And the only reason I

(48:06):
got a shot to do this stuff is because of you.
And you're the one who said, all right, I'll work
with this guy who was um, well we didn't know
each other. We yeah, yeah, we had no idea. Um.
And then over over the years, like I have been
really fortunate to learn so much, not just about um,

(48:31):
not just about the various strange and fascinating things in
the automotive world that that we've we've learned from you
listeners as well, but also about how to be a
how to be a better podcaster and I'm gonna say it,
don't follow up on this and a better researcher slightly.

(48:52):
So well, Ben, you know, honestly you've taught me a
lot over the years as well. And uh, and our
listeners have taught it both of us, you know. Yeah.
The best part of the show as them obviously they
really have they've written in and it really supported us
along the way. So we appreciate everybody that's listening right now.
And uh, and again, uh, sorry to see it go,
but we're onto maybe bigger and better things. We'll see
hopefully it's bigger and better. Join us on the next

(49:16):
legs of our journey. You can also in the meantime,
while we're we're working on this new chapter of stuff,
you can check out several of Scott's appearances on one
of my other shows, stuff they don't want you to know,
where we look into conspiracy theories related to the automotive world. Sure,
and before we start working on you know, these new shows,

(49:36):
you know, both you and I will Ben as his
own show of course, you know, stuff they don't want
you to know. And uh, and he works on many
other shows. He'll be able to catch him elsewhere, and
I often will sit in with you know, Jonathan on
tech stuff or something. Yeah. Yeah, so I like some
appearances here and there. It won't be completely gone for
a while, but um um, just out of this seat
for a while. Yeah, I'll be back. Yeah yeah, and

(49:58):
right uh, right to us with anything that's on your mind.
Not to be too bit or sweet, but write to
me specifically about the shows we didn't get to yet,
because I'm gonna build up. I'm gonna find something to
do with them, something really cool. And in the interim,
all our social media stuff is still going to be up,
so don't don't forget to share really cool car stories

(50:22):
with your fellow listeners, and I guess Scott most importantly,
I gotta say that the last word. If you go
to you all right, well for the last time. You
can reach us that car stuff at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

(50:45):
Is that how stuff works dot com. Let us know
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