Found: A special Shelby in a stable

Back in 2018, I received a phone call from Jason Billups of Billups Classic Cars in Colcord, Okla. Billups started the conversation with, “I found it.”

“You found what?” I asked.

“Little Red.”

A few weeks later, Billups, Todd Hollar and I were en route to a diner in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to meet with Terry Seale, “Little Red’s” owner. The goal of meeting Seale for breakfast at the diner wasn’t just to fill our bellies, but to become acquainted with him and possibly see the car that may very well be the elusive red 1967 Shelby Mustang coupe known in the Shelby community as “Little Red,” and more formally identified as the 1967 Shelby GT500 EXP coupe.

Apparently we’d been spreading butter on more than just our toast and toward the end of our meal, Seale invited us to see his red Mustang coupe. Until that day in 2018, Seale hadn’t allowed any outsiders to see the weathered Mustang parked in a field on his aunt’s property. Seale suspected his Mustang was a Shelby, but couldn’t prove it without expert help. That’s where Billups entered the picture.

About 30 minutes into Billups’ verification process, he reached the conclusion that the serial number “7R01S133947” stamped into the car’s driver-side fender apron was indeed that of “Little Red,” the 1967 Shelby GT500 coupe prototype that many thought had been lost forever. My Sony HDR video camera and Nikon D700 were about to be a part of the process of documenting this important part of Shelby history.

Billups is considered an expert restorer of Shelby Mustangs. His knowledge of Shelby history puts him in a select group of specialists within the Shelby Mustang community. He restored his first Shelby, a Brittany Blue 1967 GT500, in 2005. Since then, he and his team at Billups Classic Cars have restored more than 50 Shelbys, including the 1967 GT500 EXP coupe known as “Little Red” and its “brother,” the 1968 GT500 EXP coupe with serial number 8F02S104288 known as “The Green Hornet.” The preproduction 1969 Shelby GT500 convertible, which Billups Classic Cars also restored, was the cover car of the May 24, 2018, issue of Old Cars. That 1969 Shelby GT500 preproduction car, known by the last four digits of its serial number (#2336), and the 1969 Shelby GT500 featured here (known as #0029, the last four digits of its serial number), originated from the same stable, as both are rare Ford and Shelby Engineering Test Cars.

Finding another pilot Shelby

During most of 2018 and 2019, I filmed, photographed and otherwise documented the restoration process of “The Green Hornet” and “Little Red” Shelby GT500 coupe prototypes at Billups Classic Cars. When Billups called me in August 2023 to say he was going to Grand Rapids, Mich., to inspect what he suspected was a 1969 Shelby GT500 Ford Engineering Pilot Test Car, I was on standby to begin repeating the visual documentation process of another important Shelby. Billups’ first follow-up phone call to me came the evening after he traveled to Grand Rapids to meet with the Knoll family. Billups had spent hours methodically inspecting their Shelby in its 38-year resting place within the historic brewery where recently deceased owner Kurt Knoll had stowed the car after buying it in 1985. At the conclusion of our phone conversation, Billups asked, “Can you meet me here next week to film, photograph and document the discovery and process of me pulling out the Shelby for a trip to its new home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma? The family decided to sell it and through me, Ken Timmons reached an agreement with the family (Kathy Knoll, Ken Knoll and Kolleen Bruinooge) to buy the Shelby. Casey Kelly and I will be there next Tuesday to pick it and the parts that go with it up. Can you make it?”

“I’ll be there,” I responded.

A scholarly Shelby

Montcalm Community College in Sidney, Mich., had received red Shelby GT500 fastback #0029 as a donation from Shelby Automotive in 1969. The Shelby had served as an educational vehicle within the college’s automotive education department until 1985. Its early-production serial number indicates it may have been a prototype for the 1969 model year. Montcalm Community College sold the Shelby at public auction in 1985 to raise funds for its automotive department. Kurt Knoll caught wind of it being for sale and showed up at the auction, bought it and left with his dream car.

The Ford Motor Co.’s Pilot Plant in Allen Park, Mich., where special non-assembly-line automobiles are constructed, originally produced the car as a Candyapple Red ’69 Mustang GT SportsRoof. From there, it was transported a very short distance to Shelby Automotive’s Michigan location where it received the GT500 styling and performance treatment. Shelby Automotive transformed it into a GT500 by plucking its S-Code 390-cid engine and replacing it with an R-Code 428-cid Cobra Jet engine. In addition, its factory four-speed manual transmission was replaced with a C6 automatic transmission. The factory air-conditioning system remained on the car when it became a Shelby GT500. According to information received from Ford Motor Co., Shelby #0029 is one of two 1969 Shelbys to have been built at the Pilot Plant and equipped with the factory S-code 390-cid engine, manual four-speed transmission and air conditioning. The GT500 was further equipped with a factory AM/FM radio, fold-down rear seat, tilt steering wheel and Deluxe interior. The car’s Marti Report confirms these features and further states the car was an introductory show unit to be delivered to Ford Motor Co.’s Allen Park facility, and its listed factory order type code of 480000 confirms it was destined for delivery to Shelby.

The second 1969 Shelby pilot car, 9S02S100026 (aka #0026), has an earlier VIN, but was likely produced at the Pilot Plant in conjunction with 9S02S100029. It’s believed to survive in Australia.

Ford Motor Co. Pilot Plant History

The Ford Pilot Plant facility, located at 17000 Oakwood Boulevard in Allen Park, Mich., was opened in the summer of 1956 as the original location for the newly created Continental Division, where all Continental Mark II cars were assembled. It was renamed the Edsel Division Headquarters until 1959, when the Edsel automobile was discontinued. The facility later became Ford Motor Co.’s New Model Programs Development Center, where new models continue to be tested and developed. The role of the Pilot Plant is to test the manufacture of new products for the first time. There, employees document the steps and procedures of manufacture before assembly-line production begins at another Ford Motor Co. factory. The Ford Pilot Plant can manufacture several vehicles at one time; products are moved from station to station on mobile carriages until the process is complete.

During my 27-year career at Ford Motor Co.’s Wixon Assembly Plant, I had interactions with the Pilot Plant and visited it numerous times. As a manager at Wixom, I was required to make occasional trips to the Pilot Plant facility with other managers and team members prior to the launch of the DEW-98 Lincoln LS. These in-person meetings to the facility were referred to as “fit and finish meetings,” as part of the company’s continuous improvement initiative. These meetings allowed engineers, suppliers, vendors, technicians, supervisors, managers and others from the team to get a firsthand look at the new product(s) in a controlled environment without disrupting the normal production-line process at other assembly plants. The Pilot Plant was instrumental in allowing the team to have a hands-on approach at how newly designed components fit and the process to build a new automobile, such as the Lincoln LS we were building at the Wixom Assembly Plant.

One pilot leads to another

Back in 2016, Billups and his Billups Classic Cars team successfully unveiled the black 1969 Shelby GT500 convertible Ford Engineering Test Car with serial number 9F03Q102336 at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN) in Rosemont, Ill. During the event, a person approached Billups and showed him an old Polaroid picture of a 1969 Shelby GT500. The car was buried under boxes and other debris that concealed it from anyone who might pass through the building where it was stowed. The person presented the picture and said, “I know the whereabouts of this ’69 Shelby GT500 and it might be related to the one you and your team unveiled at MCACN.”

Upon seeing the Polaroid, Billups’ curiosity was piqued. Once back home and settled into his office, Billups began researching this intriguing ’69 Shelby GT500. He came across the name Kurt Knoll as the owner of 1969 Shelby GT500 “9S02S100029,” and using the internet and other resources, he found a phone number for Knoll in Grand Rapids.

In early 2017, Billups and Knoll spoke for the first time. They had four conversations over several years, and each time they talked about the GT500 and its potentially unique place in Shelby history. At no time did they discuss the possibility of a sale, and Knoll never indicated the GT500 was for sale. He did indicate a plan to restore the car, and that he’d been acquiring parts to make that happen. Billups hoped to one day get an invite from Knoll to inspect the car in person, but it turns out very few people had ever seen the car during Knoll’s ownership, let alone sat in it.

Knoll’s younger sister, Kolleen Bruinooge, happened to be at their father’s house the day Knoll rolled up in the red Shelby after buying it in 1985.

“I asked if I could sit in it,” she recently recalled. “Kurt pointed to the passenger-side front seat, told me to get in — ‘But don’t touch anything.’ I got in, sat in the seat, looked everything over, then got out. And I didn’t touch anything. It was the only time I was ever allowed to sit in the car. It breaks my heart that he never had a chance to put it back together. That car was his baby.”

Unfortunately, Knoll passed away in 2022 and the Shelby remained partially disassembled and sitting in the same old brewery building that he acquired several months after his 1985 purchase of the car.

A stable for a thoroughbred

In 1866, Peter Weirich opened Valley City Brewery in Grand Rapids, Mich., and operated it out of a 70-x-60-foot building three-and-half-stories high with a 54-x-78-foot wing. It was connected to another building that served as an icehouse and stable. The stable sheltered the horses that pulled wagons transporting beer products from the brewery. It seemed only fitting that a thoroughbred Shelby would be stored in this stable.

After walking through the icehouse during the recent discovery and removal process of the Shelby GT500, it became clear the blocks of ice and hay bales would have been stored on the second level, then lowered down to the main floor from an overhead trap door. This same opening was used to lower the Shelby’s 428-cid engine block from the second floor during the car’s removal process. Apparently Knoll had stored the engine block and many other parts for the Shelby on the second floor for safe keeping.

Knoll received formal automotive mechanic’s training at Grand Rapids Junior College and used his skill to open Grand Center Automotive at what had been Valley City Brewery. As a young boy, he and his father, Ken Knoll, Sr., took a liking to go-cart racing. Knoll was a locally successful go-cart racer and earned many wins on the track. His love for gas-powered racing go-carts carried over to high-performance automobiles with Ford Mustangs, Shelbys being his favorite type. Knoll owned a Grabber Blue ’71 Mach 1, and his family recalls it was his favorite until the Shelby finally came along and “Kurt had his dream car,” his sister recalls.

A Shelby’s next step

Much of the credit for Jason Billups being asked to see the GT500 and validating its Shelby authenticity goes to Lowell Otter, the owner of a 1967 Shelby GT500 prototype. After hearing about the passing of Knoll in 2022, Otter reached out to the Knoll family. In February, he was allowed to see the 1969 GT500, and the family entrusted him to help assess it and everything within the building where it had been sitting for the past 38 years.

Knoll’s siblings asked Otter if he knew of anyone with the professional expertise to evaluate the GT500 and go through all the parts. His response to them was, “Yes, I’d recommend calling Jason Billups and seeing what it would take to get him to come here to see the Shelby in person.” Acting on behalf of the Knoll family, Otter contacted Billups, and not long after, Billups was on a flight to Grand Rapids.

During the evaluation process, the Knolls mentioned they were going to sell the Shelby GT500 and asked if Billups could tell them what it was worth. He told them what he thought they could get for it and then added, “I might know someone who will give you what I quoted you.” Billups contacted Ken Timmons and a deal was struck.

The current plan for the ’69 Shelby GT500 is to leave it as found. From Nov. 18-19 of this year, it will be part of the barn find display at MCACN (www.mcacn.com). After MCACN, it will return to Billups Classic Cars and undergo a rotisserie restoration. Once the restoration is completed, Billups and Timmons would like it to return to MCACN for one of the show’s official post-restoration unveilings, with the Knoll family taking part in the process.

I plan to follow the restoration and happenings related to this historic 1969 Shelby GT500 Ford Engineering Pilot Test Car, including its possible MCACN unveiling. A cover story in Old Cars will follow the completion of the restoration, and that story will highlight all the unique features of this pilot car as they are uncovered during the restoration process. Stay tuned! 

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