Historic Racing Hoods

at the beach

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The Shelby American Tiger ran at least two different hoods during its 6 months of competition in 1964. The first was similar to those used on the Cobra Daytona Coupe which was developed months before the Shelby Tiger first hit the racetrack. The final Tiger version is shown below. In the wide shot you can see Ken Miles resting his hand on the trunk lid. The zoomed in view shows the 427 hood scoop better. (Tiger car chief Ted Sutton built Shelby's first 427 Cobra about the same time he set up the Tiger for racing.) I do not see any vents in the hood in this picture.

The next two pictures show Don Sesslar testing the Sports Car Forum Tiger in April, 1965 and show what I believe is the first LAT hood. notice the two vents running across the hood. Perhaps Doanne came up with this design but I have not seen any pictures of the HSC Tiger this early in the season. Like the LAT hood, the SCF Tiger uses the Cobra Scoop and not the T-Bird scoop that Doanne copied for the Hollywood Tiger. The HSC scoop is taller and has a more triangular top view while the Cobra is more rectangular.

BTW, The hood on the SCF Tiger is the exact same hood that's on the yellow Shelby Tiger. Today it is stored in my garage. It has some rust spots and still carries the patina of countless races. In places where the paint is chipped you can still see yellow testimony to its heritage. Today we run a LAT hood built by Kent Wilcox with a pop-riveted Cobra hood scoop like the scoop shown in the 1964-5 pictures.



bt
at the beach
 
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at the beach

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sorry 'bout that...

I tried to upload twice and I just got a blank screen. I'll try again soon.

bt
 

hottigr

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hoodie

I have some great shots of the first hood Shelby used for the 1st race in Tucson. From the size of the opening, it looks like they were more concerned with getting heat out than getting air into the carb:

34ywozb.jpg
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Moondoggie

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Duke,

The Shelby team uniform was White pants and white shirt in the early years
and later a blue jacket and blue shirt with Shelby logo was added
the the race support team...and drivers.

Moondoggie
 

Duke Mk1a

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Duke,

The Shelby team uniform was White pants and white shirt in the early years
and later a blue jacket and blue shirt with Shelby logo was added
the the race support team...and drivers.

Moondoggie

Did they deliver milk after work?
 

at the beach

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Duke,

"...delivered milk after work?"

Where in the heck did you grow up? The milkmen around the Shelby shop in Venice made their rounds in the morning, before work and before they could get Shelby American grease wiped on their fresh uniforms. :)
(Useless trivia: I seem to recall the milk trucks around there delivered for Adhor Dairy,)

The hood shown in the Tucson picture (which was April, 1964 & was the world's first Tiger appearance in a race) was the one I was describing with the design as being like the Daytona Coupe. Thanks for posting it. (Note the "Alpine" fender script.)

The Shelby car usually had overheating problems and following an incident at Cotati the hood was replaced with the hood shown in the picture with Ken Miles I posted earlier. At Cotati, the car "puked" during the race and blasted Lew Spencer with a face full of boiling coolant. Lew was wearing a full face shield on his helmet which saved him from serious burns. The more conventional hood replacement kept future "puking" away from the driver.
 
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michael-king

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Buck,

While the early bonnet shot shows the "alpine" script still ont he car.. even when they had switched to the Tiger script later they still had the SIV Alpine sheilds. They added the cobra style rectangular powerd by ford badge between.

On a side note you mentioned about not being sure when the vents in the HSC 55 cars bonnets came about, the july/august 2012 edition of "vintage motorsports" has an article on Doane Spencer and Jim Adams, there is a pic of the HSC car at santa babra in May 1965 and the bonnet has the vents. There are a few other small detail differences i picked up in the pic from the car as it was by the end of the season.

Also in the same article they have a pic of jim in the car as its being setup in the shop. and a photo Doane in an autolite cap at a meet holding what appears to be an alpine head.. the article is a little light on.. but a couple of nice pics and bits f information.
 

at the beach

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The Shelby Tiger, like the Coupes, was an "AF" car. These retained various Alpine remnants that were later replaced on the production cars. I think it was June or July before the Tiger script got on the fenders. Initially it was not entered in races as a "Tiger" but as an "Alpine 260".

bt
 

michael-king

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and dont forget that the SCCA homolgation papers tolet the cars race actually gave the game away hat rootes was goign to produce a v8 sportscar

its interesting to see the ways that the 2 different sides of the atlantic approached the scoop/vent solutions.

Stateside you had the cobra style hoodscoops, The scoops generally towards the back of the bonnet and over the carb. On the LAt bonnet they made them a little longer and lower moving the opening close to the front of the car. You also had the vents in the bonnet at the rear be it HSC or LAT and then there was the HSC side vents from the engine bay which led to the LAT fender vents, again a cobra style item mounted mid way on the guard.

In the UK you can the works rally cars which ran small US style scoops intially, then the very long ant eater style scoop that ran all the way to the leading edge of the bonnet. However the UK cars never ran vents in the bonnets, but would prop the rear edge to draw out hot air. The Targa florio tiger also went a unique long style scoop on its special bonnet. The Fraser monster tiger ran several style scoops.. its final incartation again a long scoop that went towards the leading edge of the bonnet and also employed fender vents.. in almost a hybrid location between USA/rootes postion

The works rally cars also used side vents, but they ran triangular ones very high up to the rer guards trying to extricate the air from the top of the engine compartment where it got trapped at the rear.

Lots of different solutions to a comon tiger problem. Will try and add in the relevant pics later. :)
Targa Tiger
mh14.jpg

64_Sunbeam_Tiger_DV_06-Q_a01.jpg

works short nose:
std_1964_sunbeam_tiger.jpg

works tiger rally long nose:
don_barrow_sunbeam_tiger_2.png

biog_30.jpg

Fraser Monster Tiger:
short scoop:
2.jpg

long scoop:
3.jpg

side vents:
4.jpg
 
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