Carroll Shelby – The Edgar Ferrari and Maserati Years Page Four
A week on, Shelby was back in California at Cotati’s flat farmland airport course near Santa Rosa, re-united with the Edgar 300S. When the car’s clutch broke at the standing start, he had to drive the 30-lap race crash shifting gears—and won! A week later he was in Eagle Mountain, Texas, again with the 300S, where he DNF’d. At Lime Rock, Connecticut, another week into June, he won in the rental 300S once more, then two weeks later was at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin with a DNS for the Maser that was followed by a DNF at Maryland’s Marlboro Motor Raceway in mid-July. Then came Lime Rock, again, this time a non-National regional race. The date was July 28, 1957, an exasperating delay of 127 days after Fangio and Behra won the 12 Hours of Sebring in a 450S that we thought would then be our car.
Encino, California, July 1957. Shelby in the Edgar Maserati 450S at long last to serve him well, months after it had been promised then raced by Moss and Fangio in Europe.
The July 28th Lime Rock date was significant because it was also the first time Shelby raced the long-awaited Edgar 450S Maserati—not the Sebring winning 450S, but a newer one that had been driven by Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson in that year’s Mille Miglia and again my Moss and Fangio at the ’57 Nürburgring 1000-km, resulting in DNF on both outings. That 450S was then repaired and re-numbered at the factory, and shipped to the States.
Shelby recalled how it all came about. “Maserati screwed us around,” he told me a year or so ago, repeating the story, “and said we were going to get one, and then we didn’t.” Finally, as the summer of ’57 wore on, he told my father, “Let’s just buy it!” Amazing how fast hard cash turns delayed promise into quick delivery. Twenty grand did just that. Shelby’s first drive in the new Edgar-owned 450S Maser at Lime Rock Park was a resounding physical and psychological victory and virtual warm-up for Virginia International Raceway’s inaugural a week later in Danville. By far the fastest car at VIR, Shelby in our 4.5 Maserati shut out Briggs Cunningham’s D-Type Jaguars and the rest of a Ferrari-dotted field in both VIR’s 23-mile Preliminary and 65-mile Main.
Virginia International Raceway, August 1957. Shelby poses with a VIR official after winning the VIR Inaugural in this Edgar Maserati 450S.
Virginia Raceway double-done and won, Joe Landaker was ready to haul the 450S back to Los Angeles as fast as the transporter would go in order to prepare the car for the up-coming Road America “500” at Elkhart Lake on September 8th, and then back to California’s new Riverside International Raceway opening two weeks after the Wisconsin 500-miler. But wait! First there was another race in the east, at Montgomery, New York, where Shelby and the 450S could squeeze in an important showing for car and driver points on August 18th. He grabbed pole there in timed practice, but the main event’s standing start trashed the big Maser’s gearbox and it went nowhere. Landaker suddenly had even more to do to put the 450S in shape for Elkhart and Riverside.
Joe Landaker's pride and joy was the Edgar team's 10-wheel transporter with hotted GMC V8 tractor. Displayed are Edgar Ferraris, 375 Plus (left) and 410 Sport.
“He lived for horsepower and the road,” Shelby has told me of Landaker, “and he was my best sports car mechanic in the 1950s. Joe could drive that transporter coast-to-coast in two days, living on cheese snacks and soda pop, and never once stopping to sleep.” Landaker, too, had a special way with a race car’s body damage. Not how expensive coachwork on these same sports cars is refurbished today, Joe back then did the job right in the race paddock with mallet and tin snips. Plus he was a whiz with engine and drive train work and applied early-learned truck mechanics for making innovative fixes from scratch. “All-nighters with wrenches and hammers,” said Shelby, “were just regular hours for Joe.”
Repairs and prep done, and back on the road, the whole shebang was at Elkhart Lake and ready for the 500-mile race on September 8th. For the third time, the featured face-off was Shelby and Hill again. Hill arrived straight from Europe with runner-up factory Ferrari finishes at Reims and Kristianstad; his weapon at Elkhart being the ex-works 315S Ferrari in which Piero Taruffi won 1957’s Mille Miglia. Race strategy here caused Shelby some pause. Landaker could unload either the 450S or its back-up sibling 300S. Two Maseratis, which one to pick? Shelby had up-coming races planned for the 450S at Riverside, Palm Springs, Laguna Seca and again at Riverside, and he figured 500 miles on the 450S engine at Elkhart might put at risk the big Maser’s reliability for those close-succession contests yet on his dance card. So—he would do “The 500” in our 300S. Even though Shelby drove the distance with no driver change, Hill, also going solo, won the race in his Ferrari. Shelby’s only consolation was the 450S had remained fresh for Riverside’s inaugural.
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, September 1957. Shelby, with then-wife Jeanne, takes a break, sitting on the Edgar Maserati 300S he drove to 2nd place here.
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, September 1957. Shelby, in the red Edgar Maserati 300S, passes the dirt "pits" on the 4-mile track where he will finish 2nd in the Road America 500.
Riverside International Motor Raceway, as it was first called, opened September 21, 1957, barely ready for action after my father paid dearly for its construction when initial funding dried up in the track build’s earliest stages. It was a blistering hot race weekend, and Shelby fired up the 450S for practice on the brand new 3.275-mile road circuit. Not through his first lap, he lost traction in a sandy corner and stuffed the big Maser front end first into an embankment. Shelby’s face required 70 stitches and the Maserati’s nose needed much more than Landaker’s mallet. The 450S and Shelby were categorically DNS for the race, but the kicker was Richie Ginther won the opener’s main in none other than the Edgar 410S Ferrari, and Bill Pollack took third in our 300S. If anyone wondered, my father by then was totally ignoring any indenture to Maserati, and freely ran his Ferraris seated with drivers of his choice. After all, the 450S was no contractual freebie as originally anticipated, but rather fully paid for and owned outright by John Edgar.
Riverside International Raceway, September 1957. The heavily damaged Edgar Maserati 450S after Shelby spun it into a dirt embankment during race practice.
While the 450S underwent extensive repairs, Shelby healed. Car and driver were ready to race again for the Edgar team at Palm Springs the first weekend in November, with Shelby in the 450S winning both the prelim and main with little effort, while Ginther, again in our 410, finished sixth. From there it was on to Laguna Seca the following week where Shelby elected to drive the more nimble 300S on the twisty new road circuit that for the first time replaced Pebble Beach’s historic but deadly car chase through the Monterey Peninsula forest. Shelby put our little Maser on Laguna’s pole for the track’s initial main. Understeer and brushes with hay bales in the Corkscrew relegated him to only fourth at the finish. Our old 857S was there, too, by then sold to its next owner and driven to fifth place by Ginther. As for our “borrowed” 300S Maser, this Laguna Seca was its last appearance as an Edgar-entry, the car going back to Maserati as we headed south again for Riverside.
Laguna Seca Raceway, November 1957. Shelby goes wide in the Corkscrew driving the Edgar Maserati 300S. In front is John von Neumann's Ferrari 625 TRC. Pete Lovely (left) will win in this Ferrari 500 TR.
Riverside, September 17, 1957. A cold day author William Edgar (far right) well remembers for the hot win in the Edgar Maserati 450S by Carroll Shelby (far left). Next to Shelby is John Edgar, Race Queen Jan Harrison and William's first wife, Patricia Edgar.
And so came our return to Riverside Raceway for November 17th’s SCCA National. Windy and bitterly cold, the 82-mile big-bore feature got underway with Shelby in the 450S taking the lead on Lap 4. On Lap 5 he spun the big Maser and a flock of front runners flew past before, furious at himself, he was back in the combat.
Riverside, November 17, 1957. On his way to winning, Shelby in the Edgar Maserati 450S leads Walt Hansgen in Briggs Cunningham's D-Type Jaguar.
Riverside, November 17, 1957. Shelby in the Edgar Maserati 450S (right) chases down Dan Gurney (Ferrari 375 Plus) on Carroll's way to winning the track's first SCCA National.
In the next hour of arguably his best driving ever, Shelby mowed down the leaders and won the race. Coming second in the ex-Parravano 375 Plus was a young local no-name known forever after as Dan Gurney. At that moment, though, Carroll Shelby was on top of the world. He’d won an important National in an Edgar car on John Edgar’s track. And, to add even more icing to the big-picture cake, behind Gurney then Gregory’s Maser and Walt Hansgen’s D-Type, Ginther brought my father’s 410 Sport home in fifth spot. That night, the Presidential Bar at Riverside’s Mission Inn was all about celebration.
“Riverside,” Shelby has said, “was a fine European-type circuit, and I think one of the best we had in America in those days.” Then, he told me, “It tickled your father for years that I’d won that race after getting ‘Texas Mad.’”
Riverside, November 17, 1957. Victorious Shelby perched on the Edgar Maserati 450S, with John Edgar (sun glasses), Race Queen Jan Harrison, Shelby's future wife (far left), holding checkered flag.
Carroll Shelby – The Edgar Ferrari and Maserati Years Continued
About William Edgar
Incredibly timely posting here………Carroll Shelby RIP!
A wonderful piece on a great man – a true automotive icon. And one that will be missed.
William…you mention the 410 being tired about the time it DNFd at Stockton Airport 1957. I happened to have been witness to that when I was a 19 year old course worker on the main straight.
In the main event, Carroll simply took off and left everyone so far behind it seemed like a one-man race. For lap after lap he extended his lead, then as the car was flying down the main straight, the engine suddenly cut, and the car and driver came to a stop right in front of me, next to the snow fencing used to line courses in those days.
I leaned over the cockpit from the left side (the 410 was, of course, right hand drive), and asked him what could have happened. He held up the shift lever, and in his wonderful Texas drawl, “Damned thing broke right off in my hand!.”
And it certainly had, right to the base of the lever shaft. I helped him roll the car to an opening in the snow fence and into the paddock.
I saw him a couple of years later, dominating the Vaca Valley main event in the Tipo 61 Birdcage. No question he could drive and win in everything.
We’ll never be able to fully add up all that he did for American racing. Irreplaceable!!
Thanks, David, for adding your recollection of Shelby’s broken shifter at the Stockton race on March 17, 1957. It nicely finds its place into the colorful mosaic of Shel’s racing during that period. In my article, though, I did not say the 410 was “tired” but rather “rapidly-getting-worn” which it indeed was at that point in the car’s very hard life. The 410′s brakes were becoming an issue and, obviously, the shifter had weaken to the point of failure. The car’s 4.9-liter V12 engine itself was still very strong, hence the performance you witnessed and was so impressive, even though the competition in that race was not the most challenging. Lou Brero’s D-Type Jaguar posed no serious threat to Shelby’s big Ferrari, but Lou drove his D-Type well and won that race with it after Shel dropped out. At the time, sadly, Brero had little more then a month to live. He died on April 21st following a racing accident at Dillingham Field, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, and sports car racing and its enthusiasts lost a driver of great talent and popularity.
William….thanks so very much for your comments about my recollections. I think I actually knew then that I was living through an extraordinary time. The drivers and machines and courses remain so vivid. The first race I ever attended – in my new MG TF1500 – was the last Pebble. And the following year, of course, the first Laguna. Our 23 year old son – a total gearhead – can’t imagine that I was there, seeing those fabulous races!
I clearly recall reading about Lou Brero’s fatal accident. He was one of the guys I always followed, along with Merle Brennan in the manxtail Cooper and Bob Oker and Harry Eyerly’s amazing Crosley, etc., etc.
Over the years I’ve amassed a rather extensive automotive library, among which are old, very rare, certainly famous volumes. Yet the book I return to over and over is “Sports Car Racing”, the story of your fabulous Dad, Tony Parravano, John von Neuman and the whole West Coast scene. I wonder how many enthusiasts today understand how they changed the entire car world in North America, and later in Europe, because of their passion and investment.
Looking back, I see the period ’58 – ’60 as the pinnacle of the sports racer in America. The sheer range of machinery that showed at Laguna in those years – along with a drivers’ list that sounds like some kind of dream today – is staggering to recall. Of course, being a third generation Californian (San Franciscan at that), I can’t imagine the epicenter having been anywhere else. To be here then really was a beautiful, exciting dream.
I honor your Dad, and wish you the best.
Sincerely,
David Berelson
Hi, william, I am producing a documentary on the Pebble Beach races from 50-56, i would love to get your story on camera. email me. deank@kirklanddigital.com
Great story, William! (Stories, actually.) I cheered Shelby on at almost all his races on the East Coast in the mid-Fifties, and championed his successful effort to perfect Ford’s then-troubled GT40 in the June, 1965 issue of Car and Driver (an article still quoted back to me by the Shelby American Owner’s Club). Great photos, too….
Fabulous stuff from William Edgar, as usual. Thank you for these great recollections.
what a 1st class texan all the way. shell was in beverly hills at david e. davis book signing yrs ago.
had plenty of women around him. last time i saw him in person. love the pictures from the old days.
thanks for sharing. youmust of had a fabulous childhood with your dad. keep sharing.
Not so long ago I found myself thinking about how rare it is to run into people of my age (I was born in late 60′s) who really know what “Shel” was doing before he got involved with his Cobra project. I was amazed to find out that Wikipedia for instance did not say a word about his driving career (a little better now, but not that much). That’s why I was particularly delighted to find this article, and I think it does manage to draw a credible portrait of a man behind the legend and the people he was involved with. Thank You so much for sharing Your unique memories and amazing photos. Very well done!
Kare: I’m so glad you made your comment about Carroll Shelby’s driving years. I’m also pleased to find the “Ferrari In Sweden” website, and 410 Sport # 0596CM, sister car to the 410 Shel drove, by clicking on your name. Thanks, and all best, W.E.
We can thank God for great people like this that has developed great cars and racing to which we all appreciate today and will for years to come. It will be hard to find a new person that can will his shoes and do what he has done for cars and the industry of autos.Great racers have come and gone and only few names are remembered…this is definatly one of those names that will never be forgotten.His cars will help his history to live on. Hopefully one of our younger generation will come to stardome and shine like he has done and carry things to the next level.
Thank you, William.
My favorite article of the year.
Mr. Shelby is my automotive hero.
What a terrific piece of Sport Car History! Brings back vivid memories. I was blessed to have been there to observe most of these events alongside my Father Ted Brown. May they both rest in peace!
William: Thanks for the great stories. I was present at many of the California races you refer to.
That Shelby/Hill duel at Palm Springs in particular is one I have never forgotten.
I was glad to be a part of it all too – even though I was a young teenager – it all
made a strong impression on me – determined my goals, career and life ineterests.
I became a mechanical engineer because I wanted to design and build race cars -
and I have – as well as raced karts, motorcycles and cars.
Best regards,
Mike Savin
Thanks, Mike for your comment. I refer SCD readers to your recollection of Bob Oker driving your father’s AC Bristol in a sports car race at Sacramento, California in September 1956, when few new what the car was (Tam’s Old Race Car Site – http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/MeachamBBOkerSacto56.html for a direct link to your piece) and how it impressed so many on that day back in the Fabulous Fifties.
William: – and thanks for referring them to Tam’s site. It was a wonderful era.
William and Mike….not to leave the subject of the moment – Mr. Shelby – but I had mentioned Bob Oker in my first message, and I easily remember that hot day at the Sac Fairgrounds where Bob, as usual, drove the beautiful 2 liter AC Bristol superbly, beating machinery of twice the displacement!
And the AC, good as it was, would be transformed by Carroll into the truly great 289 Cobra. What a time we witnessed!
David: That was quite a weekend. I’ve got some of it on film. I captured Masten Gregory, Lou Brero, Ken Miles, Bill Murphy, Richie Ginther, John Von Neuman in and out of the cockpit. The AC was running in E Production, 2 liter engines – and at the time, I don’t believe mods were allowed to suspension components in the Production classes. My films at Santa Barbara, especially, show lots of body lean – and probably not real good front end geometry. The car was good – and Oker was a phenomenal driver. I agree: Shelby definitely improved upon the original car.
I wish I could upload some stills captured from the above films to illustrate, and share my portraits of the drivers just named.
Mike…how I’d love to see that footage, or even stills from it! Speaking of the unforgettable Bob Oker, didn’t he also shock competition at the wheel of Lew Spencer’s ridiculously fast Morgan?
I can’t help adding a bit of color about an event that I’m sure but a handful of people saw or remember……I spent a year and a half at a specialized international trade college in Mexico City in ’59-’60. While there, I was surprised to see a notice for a sports car race outside the Capitol at a circuit called Valle del Bravo.
John and Josie brought their von Neuman stable down (about 2500 miles from Socal!), and also racing that day were two extremely fast teenage kids by the name of Rodriguez. John won – and I seem to recall that Richie Ginther was there – but the buzz was all about those brothers. We were entering the ’60′s….
David:
Nope. Oker didn’t drive Lew Spenser’s car. He did go on to drive Aston Martins
for Joe Lubin, Maserati 1500, Cooper Formula Jr, Ferraris, Cooper Monaco. He drove
Jim Firestone’s Frazer Nash several times. One big win for Oker was Riverside big-bore
event: 1958 United States Grand Prix for Sports Cars, Oct 12, 1958. The car had been
Stirling Moss’ factory car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_United_States_Grand_Prix_for_Sports_Cars
Neat that you were present for the Mexican race. I well remember reading about it
in MotoRacing Newspaper. Gus Vignole introduced the Rodriguez brothers to readers
in Southern California in his report regarding that race. The brothers’ father later blamed
Gus for the early deaths of the two. I remember seeing Ricardo driving his Porsche
Spyder at Riverside not long after that. I was jealous! Ricardo was 17 at the time -
I wasn’t going to be race-legal until I was 21.
David: Give me a way to contact you (e-mail address) – and I’ll send you some stills
from the aforementioned movie footage).
Best regards,
Mike Savin
Mike….thanks for correcting my memory re Spencer’s Morgan. Did know about Oker’s other drives. And how come no one seems to talk about Sammy Weiss, whose drives in the 550′s and RSK’s were superb. Another sad loss.
You’re really kind to offer stills of your movie footage….gratefully accepted!!
Whoops! I made a mistake: Oker won the 1959 USAC United States GP – not the ’58 version.
Also, Bob drove factory Triumph TR3s at Sebring 2 years running.(1956 and 1957). Bob drove
11 hrs and 15 minutes himself of the 1956 12 hour race – thus was given the title of “Iron Man Oker” by
Gus Vignole. He won the 2-liter GT class, finishing 19th overall
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1132468/index.htm
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