The Shelby That Started It All: Coming Out of Retirement for His Dream Job

This is my wife’s Daytona. Once we got married, we decided we wanted to do a second car. Now I have a GT40 and she got the Daytona. This is actually her daily driver, but I still love to drive it. As much as I love my GT40, we have over 50,000 miles on this car and about 2,000 track miles on it. It's just an incredible car. It'll do anything you want it to do.

Honestly the faster you go in this car, the better it feels.

I had Erick Voss at Voss Performance help me with the initial drivetrain install along with Peter Brock, who was the original designer of the car back in the 60s. He actually helped a lot with the alignment of the drivetrain. The first time the engine went in for engine placement, Peter was there and helped put the engine in the car. It's a front mid-engine car, so you can see the engine is way behind the front axle. It has really good balance for a front engine car and it'll pull 1.08 Gs on the skid pad, which is right up there with any modern supercar. The chassis Peter designed along with Bob Negstad. It has unequal upper and lower A arms, custom tuned with coil-over shocks and just handles amazingly. It has a 427 cubic inch small-block in it, a 351 Windsor based engine that puts out 585 horsepower and 609 lb feet of torque. It weighs about 2,900 pounds, so it's a very light car even with air conditioning and all the modern creature comforts. It's a very comfortable car, but extremely quick.

About three years ago, I retired from my corporate job. I ran into Lance Stander, who owns Superformance and Shelby Legendary Cars. I had bought this car from him 14 years ago. We were on a trip with the Cobra Club and he asked me what I was doing and I said, “Nothing, I'm retired”. So he said, “Why don't you come work for me?” Now I get to work with people who've been dreaming about owning a car like this their whole lives. My favorite thing getting to see that dream come true and to see the joy that the car brings. It’s amazing, I retired from my corporate job and then my dream job just came to me. My wife’s the one who’s always told me: just be open to what's around you and make room for the good stuff. Don't settle.