One of the highlights of my many years of racing has to do with the 1966 Trans-Am Mustang that Jerry Titus (1928-1970) drove to victory for Ford and Shelby. Ford was tied up at the end of the series with Dodge, and as a result Shelby built this special, one-off car, which was able to do almost the same times at Riverside that the more powerful Shelby Cobra 427 racecar could. I purchased the car after going to Shelby’s shop, adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport, when I met with Carroll directly. I was put in touch with Carroll by Pete Brock, who worked for Carroll and designed the very famous Daytona Coupe that went on to win internationally. He set it up with Carroll. I told him that I knew that they were selling most of the later team cars— the ’65 and ’66 289s. For the 289s, Shelby wanted $4,000 and for the bigger Cobras, the 427 racecars, he wanted $5,000. Then he had three cars that were the Daytona Coupes they had run in Europe very successfully, but in those days, a year-old car was just that, a year-old car, and really didn’t have much value. To think that I could have bought one of those Daytona coupes for $6,000!
Carroll told his right-hand man, Lew Spencer, a well-known racer himself, “Lew, take Ted down, show him the cars and sell him a car.” Lew was the one who took me down and told me what the prices were and what cars were available. Lou asked, “What kind of racing are you going to be doing Ted?” I said, “Well, I want to take the car to Mexico. My father is very ill and I have to go down to Mexico to take over his business, and I want to continue racing.” I had been racing quite a bit in the years just prior to having to go to Mexico, and I told him that most of the races there were either in the streets, in vacant sub-divisions, or at the Grand Prix circuit, which today is called Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, after the two young Mexican race drivers, Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez.
When Lou heard what kind of racing I was going to do, which was quite dangerous, he said, “Look, I would want, if I was doing that kind of racing, I would want as much metal around me as I could have.” He went on to say, “We’ve got Jerry Titus’ Riverside winner, the car that clinched the 1966 Trans-Am Series and the car is very, very quick, and Carroll wants $3,500 for it.” It had just the one race on it, the Riverside race.
I decided that that was a good idea, that it would be better to have an enclosed car rather than an open Cobra. I could have purchased one of the Daytonas, but I did not ever believe that they could possibly be worth much, certainly not what they are worth today. I acquired the Mustang, it was painted “icebox white.” All of the cars that Shelby was working on came directly from the factory painted in white, as was this coupe. I always liked a yellow, sort of a lemon yellow, so after I bought it I had it painted yellow, with black stripes down the middle—two black stripes. I then bought a trailer for $1,500 and a nice tool box full of the tools that I thought would be necessary to work on the car, and had one of our employees come up from Mexico, who later became my wife’s chauffeur in Mexico City. He drove the car on the trailer to Mexico City. Soon after it got to Mexico, there was a race in Puebla at a place called Los Fuertes, which was, in fact, just an unfinished subdivision with just streets and curves, which made it very dangerous.
I entered it and drove the car to Puebla, where my co-driver was to be Freddy van Beuren, who was a well-known Mexican driver and had driven Trans-Am cars and went on to become a very successful Trans-Am driver, in his own right. Freddy and I drove the car and, unfortunately, when the car did not show up on one of the laps, we knew something had happened. When we went to get it, Freddy had, in fact, blown the engine. We found out, later on, that a Mexican mechanic who I hired to inspect the car, had dropped the oil pan to see what the crank looked like, but didn’t torque the bottom end bolts properly and that’s what caused the engine failure. I then ordered another engine from TRACO, which was the engine builder for Shelby at the time, specializing in 289 engines. The engine that was in the car was putting out about 400 horsepower. The new TRACO engine that I had brought down was a 450 horsepower engine. I did a lot of testing at the Magdalena Mixhuca circuit, which later became Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
After several tests of the car, which I found to be extremely quick, we entered it in a race that was held in conjunction with the 1967 Mexican Grand Prix and included some of the great drivers of the day, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Joakim Bonnier and the like.
By that time, I had owned the car for about a year or a year and a half. After extensive testing, where I was getting to know the car really well and getting the most out of it, we entered it in the Mexican Grand Prix support race. It was called the National Championship for Mexican-driven cars.
They had a practice session for the cars that were driving in this “Turismo Nacional” race. I took the car out, and afterward I was approached by a driver named Ruben Novoa, who was leading the points in the Turismo Nacional category. He had been driving a highly prepared Plymouth Barracuda that was also an ex-Trans-Am car, but had apparently blown his engine in the practice session. He came to me and said, “I want to buy your car. I just blew the engine in my car. I’m leading in the points for the national series and I’ve got to win it. Will you sell your car?”
I said, “Well, it’s not really for sale and I’m about to send it back to the United States.” He said, “Yeah, I understand that you have a provisional permit to bring that car into Mexico and I understand that the permit is about to expire and that’s why you are taking it out of the country. So, you’ve got to give me a good price and I’ll buy it. I have political connections that will allow me to acquire the car and nationalize it. What do you want for the car?”
I said, “It’s not really for sale, but I will sell it to you under the circumstances so that you can try to win the series. I’d have to get $3,500, which is what I paid for it. That will include the trailer.” It was an open trailer, with the set of tools that I had. He said, “Oh, you’re crazy. That’s a year-old car, it’s not worth much and I’ll give you $2,000.” I told him, “No way. It’s got to be $3,500.” To which he said, “Well, to heck with you,” and I responded, “Well, to heck with you!” and walked away. I suited up for our race, which was to start in about half an hour, but soon he came back to me and said, “Okay. I’ll buy your car and pay you $3,500.” So,we shook hands and the car was his.
I then walked over in my driving suit, my yellow driving suit, to where my brother was sitting in the grandstand with his wife and quietly sat down next to them. All of a sudden, he realized that I had suddenly shown up and he looked over at me and said, “What are you doing here? I thought I saw you out in the car there in practice?” I said, “Well, I sold the car and Ruben Novoa is out there with it for the National series.” He said, “Thank God, that’s the smartest thing you ever did!” Stu had been quite negative because he and I were running dad’s business and he felt that I was not being responsible enough because I had the shared responsibility with him to run dad’s business. So, when I told him that I quit racing, he was really happy.
Novoa did drive the ’66 Titus car in the race, but he was beaten by my friend, Freddie van Buren, who happened to be driving a 1967 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang!
