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Confessions from the Petersen
Gone in 60 Seconds
(Getting lost in a ’69 Shelby GT 350)
Part 1

By Mike Daly


There I am at the pole position on southbound La Cienega at Rodeo, waiting at the red light in a blue 1969 Shelby Mustang GT 350. The car doesn’t belong to me and it isn’t even registered. There are lots of people following me and death is on everyone’s mind. Sound familiar?

The light turns green and with no one in front of me, I fulfill the helpless urge to floor it and see what this baby can really do. After all, there’s nothing but 5 miles or so of gently curving, hilled, open freeway between me and the next stoplight. The 351 Windsor under the hood rumbles happily as my RPMs increase and shows no duress at the onset of the hill. I’m pushing 50 mph, the indicated speed limit for the road. A glance in the rearview shows my pursuers are falling behind…they don’t seem inclined to catch up and this could be my only chance to lose them. With a grin on my face that many readers know, I shift into fourth and rocket into the 60 mph realm. The cars fade into miniature behind me, and I find myself finally alone, cruising in Carroll Shelby’s mighty iteration of Ford’s seminal pony car.

When I finally hit the next traffic signal, I’m almost laughing from the joy of opening this cloistered automotive relic up. Another look in the rearview reveals none of my pursuers…I’ve lost them!

Moments later, I fall back to earth and reality sets in. Despite the appearances, I’m not Nicholas Cage’s Memphis Rains in “Gone in 60 Seconds.” Nor am I that other guy (H.B. Halicki) that played the Rains character (this time called Maindrian Pace) in the 1974 original. The details are drastically different, but in many ways, no less remarkable.

It is late March 2007, and I am an associate of the Petersen Automotive Museum. Robert E. Petersen, known to acquaintances as Bob, and to friends as “Pete,” has recently died. After a long and secret battle with neuroendocrine cancer, the octagenarian and self-made millionaire has finally been overcome by the forces of nature and gone to that great auto junkyard in the sky. During his life, Petersen built a magazine publishing empire initiated with Hot Rod magazine that eventually encompassed all his hobbies. Four Wheel and Off Road, Guns & Ammo, Bowhunting and Tiger Beat were but a few of the many magazines published by the multifaceted Pete. By the 1990s, I guess he had earned the right to indulge his hobbies in a solely recreational fashion, and thusly sold his Petersen Publishing empire to private investors for $450 million. A decade or so later, his net worth had roughly doubled. Along the way, he became the benefactor of the world’s leading car museum and amassed a collection of 200 or so classic cars, most of which are stored in the museum’s eyes-only basement storage facility known as “The Vault.”

As an associate of the museum, I had made countless trips inside The Vault and over time had grown to take for granted a collection that initially made my eyes pop out. Interestingly, Petersen’s collection is defined as much by what it lacks as what it has. He was a big fan of pre-war classics and had 3 Duesenbergs, 2 Packards, 2 Cords, a Lasalle, and a Studebaker. He also had an impressive collection of Ferraris. And obviously, as a hot rod guy, he had no lack of chopped and channeled Fords, ranging from 1923 to 1934. (coincidentally, his ’34 coupe was once owned by Nicholas Cage.)

Muscle cars were not his thing, though, and that category represented one of the fundamental shortcomings of his collection. The notable exceptions to this lack were a Hemi Coronet, two extremely customized Camaros, and best of all, the ’69 Shelby GT 350. When I first saw the blue Shelby, actually Acapulco Blue according to the Shelby paint chart, I don’t think it had moved in months, as is the case with many of the denizens of The Vault. Several months later, I assisted in loading it onto a flatbed to take it to a specialist on the Westside who for the next few months tuned her up and got her in good working order.

1969 was actually not the best year for Shelby Mustangs. Though Shelbys were sold in the 1970 model year, 1969 was actually the last year the cars were produced. (1970 cars are merely renumbered and cosmetically updated 1969 cars.) The Shelby Mustang, which originally had been a lightweight racecar version of Ford’s bestseller, had been increasingly neutered with each ensuing model year. Created in 1965, the first version of the famed fastback had no rear seats and its battery was located in the trunk for better weight distribution. With its tuned engine, the lightweight ’65 could really fly, and was a true milestone in Carroll Shelby’s seemingly endless resume of triumphs.

Ford’s basic model had become more muscular over the years, however, and 1969 saw the debut of the Mach 1, the Boss 302 and the Boss 429 Mustangs, all seminal muscle cars in their own right. Shelby’s car meanwhile had become heavier, with more sluggish performance as a consequence, and had begun to increasingly offer luxury-type features like wood grain dashboard and in-dash air conditioning as well as components borrowed from more mediocre relatives like the Mercury Cougar (dash console and shift knob) and the 1965 Thunderbird (rear taillights). The high performance distinction between Shelby’s car and the new Ford models had evaporated. At the end, the Shelby Mustang was a supercar in name only. Car and Driver senior editor Brock Yates at the time referred to the ’69 Shelby as “a garter snake in Cobra skin.”

Nevertheless, by today’s standards, the ’69 Shelby GT 350 I was driving certainly had its charms. The slightly re-designed body had more scoops (including five vents on the hood and one on each fender) and a more defined front grille. The then-new 351 ci Windsor V-8, which produced 290 bhp, was comparably muscular to the Boss engines, and the car’s attractive rear end was highlighted by a custom aluminum dual exhaust centered beneath the license plate housing (under which lay the gas tank filler cap). This combo location of the exhaust and fuel cap apparently sometimes caused fires in GT 500s when the car backfired, but no such problems ever occurred in the GT 350. When new in 1969, the Shelby GT 350 Mustang retailed at $4,434. Today at auction they bring roughly 20 times that. All in all, still a pretty bad-ass car.

Coming up in Part 2:
Why was the author driving Robert E. Petersen’s 1969 Shelby Mustang GT 350 and what did the millionaire’s death have to do with the circumstances?

Disclaimer: The views and accounts expressed herein are based largely in fact and the specifics of the cars in question are verified by and attributable to published experts on the material. The above account, however, in no way represents the views and official position of the Petersen Automotive Museum.