Found: 1966 Shelby Mustang GT350H sunk in Ohio backyard 40 years

once you get there you'll see it looks like somebody just starts up backed it out of the garage turned the corner and then walked away from it it's incredible that it's still sitting there what happens when you park a 1966 Mustang in a back yard in Ohio for a very long time tags show registration expiring in 1981 but here's one of the things we're concerned about tomorrow if you look right here there this is where the steering box bolts and there's almost nothing left in the car so we're worried about the car splitting apart if a car might split apart or could split apart so we had to get a letter from the attorney to release us and the towing company of any damage Rick first saw the car in April of 2015 his friend Mike Charles met a picker in Mount Vernon Ohio who told him I know where Shelby is in the woods I'm thinking yeah okay whatever you know you have a lot of people tell you stories but very rarely are they true so I come and told Rick about it and drug him up there and showed it to him hinge is so rusty they were only able to lift the hood about 10 inches and I was able to put a camera down here because I wanted to see what we had to deal with which looks like a 289 Cobra engine do a point distributor Cobra fender valve covers original exhaust manifolds are missing but those are finished headers they could see the old Shelby tag under the hood this has been on site so long you know what is the value this car good question most people would slam this old car but we might just find an untouched gym here and we'll get it in the rec shop and he will give us an estimate of the cost to repair the rust yes the rust is a factor but at the end of the day it's a Shelby Mustang and its original owners so we have to save the automobile praise the Lord let's save this forward praise the Lord let's save this board I don't remember what what praise the Lord we save in another but we weren't there just to buy it but we were there to offer our services which are extensive we are signature auto home Abbas cars calm that is our legal name now and today seems to be the right Davi because Derek the brother that lives at the house is off today oh okay yeah Jerry he's asleep no no okay so you grew up with the car yes I wouldn't even born yet my parents got it five years before I was born my mother who is an elementary school teacher drove it to and from work Carol Delano so she was considered one of the more popular teachers because she had drove one of the cool cars drove that to and from work for multiple years except in the winter you're gonna keep it and get it going right my brother is my brother decided that it was time to get rolling on it so they're getting things together to pull it out what was a strange was sitting outside 40 years and the cool parts still on this car like the wood steering wheel that Cobra tack screwed in the top of the dash the Cobra logo gas cap even those gt350 badges why hadn't somebody stolen some of these parts well for one the car is way out in farm country in the middle of Ohio look at those old barns and we passed through Homer in Lincoln County then into Knox County and Mount Vernon where the Shelby was safe parked outside for 40 years is this like frozen business ice on area this is ice from this morning that Iceland we had okay yeah fiberglass hood don't grow hey Joe would you mind coming over here and so we're all on the same page basically it's their each sheet set has two wheels and has bars that doesn't put me under the car okay so as support the whole car so it rolls and we still might you know put some pie without I'm not sure what some of them leave but he say he's gonna pump the tires and hopefully they hold air and that would be great didn't see the airs huh yeah is it coming out oh yeah it's aired up all right is actually really good take a near yep wow it's coming up in okay toad a pop-up apache camper trailer with that Wow [Music] this right rear tire might be good but the wheels rusted through you just can't go into the chain and pull that out right well you could but you might not pull the whole car out of there that's what we're worried about so we we planned this we've talked about it a lot so we're trying to move it pick up one car and bring one car back here we don't need it back here in three pieces next order of business start digging I kind of wondered why we needed shovels pickaxe sunk down into the ground over the years it's less work should we think we have to do this there was also a large tree trunk growing underneath the car lengthwise yeah it goes completely underneath the rear end comes out in front of the driver's side tire yeah Sean don't damage that rust our Shelby has far more than with tire sunk into the dirt yeah the rear axle and differential are planted into the ground and the same thing for the front suspension it's planted they're surrounded by dirt packed in the dirt Sean is shoving that dirt from beneath the passenger side of the rear end and that's Joe and the other side of the car digging and scooping out dirt huh John probably the original sparrows what I'm guessing you've got this in the garage what else wow this is really cool here sit on the back of the tire heavy service I think we need to make a trip to the garage the porch has been about the garage 50 years probably 50 years close to it they have a smart bonus parts when he did you got quarter panels hood trunk oh there is a trunk lid okay the trunk I believe probably shutting that door but is over there okay well anything we find will help the rest of a restoration of the car well yeah that's you know with the the more original we can put on there the more stuff we don't have to fabricate one it's cheaper and we don't have to buy the engine China parts mm-hmm no disrespect to China what do we got there bored Stanford whoa he's got new old stock Ford fenders Wow an original paper from the Ford dealership when my father would buy parts as much as possible all the time we'd go in and buy a fender here door window chrome striping kit extra rim things like that look at this Sean's shoveling dirt out of the interior can you feel the floor can you feel a floorboard in there yeah the floorboard is in there there's definitely a hole in it but there is floorboards there I don't know how it all got kicked up in there how would all that dirt get in there that's a lot of dirt here comes the row back goes about ready to hook up his dollies and pull that little Shelby onto his rollback well he almost got the car he's good and then you've done this before a couple times yeah but not an easy job especially in the dirt and with the frozen rain coming down on your head well what do you got now okay so dollies on the front wheels can get almost ready to roll oh look at the signature on the bottom of the box I can sign it for you so did you get it signed and nope my mother got it sorry that Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2001 at the Fort Lee inaugural Formula One race no I just don't want this to fly up and right okay don't want the doors to open yeah I try to keep some flex out of the middle of the cartoon all kinds of precautions for a rusty car I'm afraid if I pull on the front of it the backhoe state this man's name is on the business Cal now Cal what's the purpose of that strap what are you doing there we want to make sure that we don't pull this and put on the car break in half in other words we don't want to be pulling on this and that stay back there there's not much left under the car it's pretty much I tell you what reckless offering 500 bucks for how about that I'll go 550 they'll throw in two parts there you go man I'm cold it's it's raining ice hey we got it we've we've been thinking this over if you'll throw in two parts we'll give you 500 bucks for it I have to think about that that'll only be cash think it over yeah okay folks we're just about ready to roll and sitting for 41 years 40 years before you think the fireworks are over and what we have is simply a rusty old car beyond repair absolutely not easy-peasy this is a super exciting find and we're gonna show you why and how and what Russ you worried about rust these guys in Ohio they put rust on their oatmeal in the morning then they're from get around it oh yeah it's way past six o'clock and all we had to eat today is pizza for lunch but nobody is leaving they're slapping on to go dollies and pulling off tow straps like a Jack Roush NASCAR pit crew we're growing in numbers that's Paul Johnson paint and body man just not enough room to fit a sawdust off those hood hinges meanwhile where's the Shelby tag believable the tag didn't fall off on the drift back looks like mondo has come up with a pretty good idea a slaw won't fit under that hood but a ratchet and socket will Sean catches on the race is on who can get their side off first that's not fair you have a head start though kind of ratchet wish you had a head start though Mongo's done one more side laughter Gary but oh my god there what's your first thought about it is pretty incredible look it still has the original little sticker handling or sticker yeah look at the battery cables helmet in general they are the right alternator pulley right distributor click intake rusted shut okay what do we got well we got the original carburetor which is a nice hypo part there's the obviously the hand choke coming in here did you check the mileage on the car yet I didn't 63,000 I mean it's not often you get to deal with a one-owner 66 Shelby that bought it brand-new but yeah we can go under the hood if you want to here is the original Shelby tag that was riveted to the car and then when it's removed that shows you the hidden Ford VIN number and those two numbers Shelby Club will verify if you give them both numbers and then the shelby number was also stamped in the upper shock tower here this one's a little hard to read because of where leaves is laid and some of the rust and water through the years but it is there correct and we will find the ford numbers under the fenders after we remove them there will be under the area probably back here or possibly up here here is the original hood that came off the car but it was so rusted when you started to lift it it almost went to break in half but the family was smart enough that they bought a hood 45 years ago so we have a new shelby hood to put on the car now the repros do they have that ribbing there's a couple versions of the repo but again if with this original car and then and the new fenders that they purchased and the quarter panels this car deserves an original hood to go back on it it is compared to some maintenance items I mean you can see that somebody's put a radiator hose on up 45 years ago and they've replaced a heater hose and some of the clamps but the valuable parts like the original 4100 Ford carburetor is still on the car the factory dual point distributor is there if you look close you can see the aluminum Cobra intake except where the animals is laid and did some things and the valve covers are the original valve covers the headers have been replaced but the alternator is correct the pulley is correct the original hypo fan is there the hypo fan was a real sturdy four-blade fan and it's unique to any hypo not just a Shelby but a k-code mustang and then the original radiators still there there's the part number tag on it the only issue we have is if you look down the side it's pretty rusted so we could find another radiator use this dated top save the tag and solder the racing back on this radiator so there's a lot of stuff under the hood that's good usable stuff on this car the Monte Carlo bar is so pitted there's a lot of them out there and I think the smart thing to do would probably be buy another one to put on the car just because of all the time and effort into that piece that's not really a Shelby part so to speak so but the export brace is a Shelby part because of the spacing in the back but this one is just so bad through the years and so pitted again I think the smart thing to do would be shop for a better one not so bad well this shock tower over here is real rusty at the bottom and obviously this connects up to the frame rail we can probably buy one out of a donor car and then that would end up being grafted into this car with new aprons because again that is just a Mustang part a same way with the doors the doors are real rusty and we would we would shop for Mustang doors I don't this shock tower I think we're going to be able to save it which is really important because of the VIN number up on top well a battery box area normally rust not quite this bad but this is just a front apron that sections in right here to the front of the car there's two front aprons on the car and two rear aprons on the car and Ford made planing plenty of these out there so we would shop for Ford aprons and they would be grafted into this car well if you look right here you can see these bolts hold an outer shock tower on but this is all welded together here and it seems up here and then it comes right down here along the frame rail so this is one whole piece of sheet metal about the rest on the body starting with this fender well I'm not real concerned about it because they again they bought new fenders 4550 years ago and at the end of the day it is a Mustang fender so we're going to be replacing both fenders and both quarter panels to the car and they said they purchased a deck lid for it too but the doors are real rusty as you can see and then if you open this door you can see how bad the rust is in the door but again this is a Mustang part so we could possibly go to California Texas and find two good used Mustang doors and I want four doors back on this car not reproduction doors they are gone but they they do make a one-piece floor pan for this now where the old days we'd buy sections of a floor pan and the family seems to agree that and I do too the one-piece floor pan is a smart thing for this car yes they do make a steering wheel but there is ways to save that wheel we have a fellow in Florida that restores our wheels for us so what we'll do is take that off ship at the Florida and get a professional opinion on the wheel yeah they have ford quarters for it and this gets replaced all the way up into the roof and it comes right down through here well the deck lid of the car we haven't got the the trunk lid open yet but if you look along here you can see how pitted it is it looks like it's starting to go through there and I could run my hand along there and it fills fat and rusty so again if they've got a new Ford decklid this is the car to put it on but as things like this the end caps you know those are pop metal so those will be usable all the stainless steel will be usable there's a lot of good stuff left on this car I know we want to talk about the floor pan rust you can see through you can see the floor there Wow but things like the seats we probably won't use they don't look like they're in too bad of shape but once we took the covers off the seat I know the springs are probably rusted you wouldn't put these seats and covers back in a restored car okay and now what about the last thing the unit body frame underneath the car you have to replace all that well they make all that parts to this car but as of right now I'm pretty sure just about everything's gonna get replaced on this car the easy way to fix this car would be buy a rust-free body or buy an aftermarket body and cut the VIN tags off and put it on that car but that is illegal to do and we wouldn't do it we're not the people to do that and there's another note to add to that some of these well there's there's a lot of date codes on places on this car but again you know if you found this car sitting someplace and you went and bought an aftermarket body you you could probably have it done and running in three or four months this is gonna be a two-year project right here there's a lot of work here but it's going to be worth it when it's done now can you kind of get into the money and the family keep well the goal right now the family wants to keep the car which I think that's wonderful the money wise I can only tell you probably from just first observation of doing all the metalwork taking apart final bodywork and paint and fit they were probably going to have 35 to 40 green getting this back to look like a car as rusty as it is and as ugly as it is there's so much good here so well just there's a lot of things that will come off this car that we'll use and the reference of this car I mean this is our blueprint I mean I know this car is rusty but we can learn so much on this car when we take it apart we can verify bolts that was used plating that was used so it's a wonderful blueprint anytime you find a car like this you learn a a fortune on a car like this I mean look how these stripes were done you know we can verify this measurement we can verify this and you can see it in the roof the stripes are there this is her Bible I mean this is a lot of work but you gotta love what you do but the goal is is imagine two years from now the family coming here is seeing it pretty put a keen on going down the road I mean how cool is that special day because an original owners not seeing this in his backyard instead the original owners remembering this you see this the original owner sees this you see this a restorer like Rick Parker sees this you're looking at a nasty old interior not the owner he's seeing this cherry interior you see a rust hole and a fender the original owner remembers glory days you wonder why a car stuck in a backyard 40 years the original owner can't believe glory days of slip by so fast you see age the original owner sees so Rick yes he can say that original paint it needs wet sanding with a Brook pay attention how you we will conquer yeah you you know what you look like a is his ever [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: Jerry Heasley

Views: 3,493,349

Rating: 4.7594738 out of 5

Keywords: Barn Finds, Shelby, Mustang, G.T.350H

Id: lQtSWiSBt_M

Length: 24min 31sec (1471 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020