In a message dated 04/14/2001 11:57:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
SLaifman@SoCal.RR.com writes:
<< Ken Miles is first hired to build a
prototype "Tiger," a job that is handed over to Shelby-American."
This is on http://www.carrollshelby.com/timeline.htm
Now isn't that a different twist? The original contract was with Ken
Miles? If he "handed over" the job, is that like a subcontract? Can it
be, then, that the Ken Miles prototype is, after all, the very first
"Tiger" produced by the ORIGINAL contracted designer? >>
Steve-
I'm not sure if we will ever know exactly how the first prototypes came to
be...there are so many conflicting "stories" around.
For example, some believe Miles was actually an employee of Shelby American
when the red car and the white car were being built. If this is the case, and
given Miles relationship with Garrad (SCCA Alpines etc.), maybe Miles was the
"go between" in the whole deal, putting Garrad together with Shelby. In this
instance, it would make sense that the "contract" would be initiated through
Miles, but name Shelby American as the contractor.
I think one of the indisputable facts is that Shelby received a royalty on
Tigers produced, which leads me to believe that the timeline is just worded
in a misleading fashion and that the whole deal went down in pretty much the
way described in Taylor's book, with the red car being the result of Garrad's
impatience with Shelby's speed in delivering a "feasibility study" of a V8
Alpine.
I would imagine (as I wasn't even alive when this whole deal went down, much
less present!) that the whole deal was pretty loose...money taken from
advertising budgets, tours of auto dealerships with tape measure in hand to
see what might fit...and that, initially, there probably wasn't so much a
contract as a promise to deliver a single piece of work, the prototype, on
Miles behalf.
Just guessing, Mike
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