This past weekend I was at a family wedding. During the reception I met one of the bride's relatives. In the usual exchange of personal information he revealed that he had just retired from Ford's, where he had been an engineer for 40 or so years. I mentioned that I was building a '73 Maverick as a phantom of the Shelby Maverick (the way I thought it would have looked if it were built in the U.S. instead of in Mexico, as I informed him had happened). To my surprise he told me that he knew of the Mexican Shelbys, and that in fact he had been part of a small group (6 or 7 as I recall) of engineers sent to Mexico for 3 days to evaluate the feasibility of Ford taking over the production of these cars as part of their regular production line-up! (keep in mind that by this time Carroll Shelby had sold the rights to produce the Shelby cars to Ford, but this did not apply outside the U.S., hence the ability of the exclusive Shelby parts distributor in Mexico to build Mustangs and Mavericks bearing the Shelby and Cobra nameplates). Unfortunately, by the time the Ford engineers got to Mexico someone had already blown the engine on the one and only test car. Although they got the chance to look over the concept, they never got the chance to drive it. Needless to say, the project got the "thumbs down". When I asked him what had doomed the production of a Ford factory built Sheby Mav, he simply said that "the engine package didn't meet our expectation". You have to wonder if history would have been any different if some guy hadn't lunched that engine. I thought you might be interested in hearing this little addendum to the Shelby Maverick story. I thought that it was quite an amazing coincidence to run into this fellow, here in Canada, one of the few people to have been a part of this interesting part of Maverick history. John B.
i hope you know that you just discovered fantastic history! its a pretty small world sometimes. this is cool. mike
wow wow that really wierd small world thats too bad dont you just want to like see the smart guy that ruined it for us all? oh my goodness im so wow that unbelievable imagine if the shelby maverick was produced wow
