Nestled within the Ultimate Stang Challenge III: Classics Edition
prize package is a collection of prints and a book by one Wallace Wyss. Not everyone is well-versed with their automotive photographers, so they may be asking, "who is this guy?"
Wyss, originally from Detroit where he wrote ads for Chevrolet, moved out to California in 1969 and began writing for magazines like
Motor Trend. He has written books on many marques like Ferrari or Porsche but most often he finds himself writing about Ford-powered cars including Panteras, Ford GTs, and now Cobras and Shelbys.
One of his most recent books is COBRA & SHELBY MUSTANG Photo Archive, a softbound horizontal format picture book published by Iconografix, Hudson WI.
Q. Can you describe to us the type of book this is?
Wyss: Yes, it is a picture book, a sort of a personal photo album of Cobras and Shelby Mustangs that I have come across in 42 years of documenting the Shelby-American marque.
Q. What is the format?
Wyss: Horizontal. Admittedly books this shape have a harder time staying on the shelves in bookstores because they stick out a bit more but since cars are horizontal, you can make the pictures of cars bigger in books that are horizontal.
Q. On what basis did you choose the cars? First of all are the Cobras real Cobras or replicas?
Wyss: I chose the cars because they presented themselves in front of my camera. I aimed, I shot. I looked at what I got later. I culled through hundreds of pictures to look for significant details, such as a car with more unusual features like some Comp or S/C Cobra accoutrements mixed in with a 427 Cobra that was built for the street.
Q. So the cars are modified?
Wyss: Oh, yes, in most cases most Cobras have been modified by a succession of owners. Some have been brought all the way from road use 40 plus years ago to a “Comp” look and are now being brought back to a street look, back to the way they were in the first place.
Q.What about replicas? Why do you include those?
Wyss: Yes, because, whether the purists like it or not, replica Cobras now far outnumber the real A.C. Cobras of which there can never be more than 998 cars (according to the SAAC registrar). Now the replicas are becoming more developed and refined than the originals, so a constituency of fans for those cars has developed as well as for the originals. But wherever possible I show a real A.C. Cobra so those owners of replicas will have more information on how to make their replicas more authentic looking.
Q. Do you think that's a trend?
Wyss: Oh, yes, I met one owner of a replica, Bob Shaw of Orange County, CA, who took five years to make his replica Cobra look like the FIA car Gurney raced at the Targa.
He had the right color and even the 'dimples' in the trunk lid. Let me explain the “dimples.” In order for a car to be accepted into the FIA’s category of Grand Touring at the time it had to be able to fit the regulation-size FIA suitcase. The rumor is that when the FIA officials stuck the suitcase into the Cobra, the Shelby mechanics had to slam the trunk lid down hard in order to close it, which punched two dimples in the aluminum trunk lid. So Shelby accordingly punched his own dimples in the future FIA Cobras.
Q. Where did you shoot the pictures?
Wyss: The bulk of them were shot at Monterey , at the historic races, but many times I’d go up to Willow Springs on a Cobra club day and shoot pictures, plus I went to a few Shelby conventions.
Q. What about original shots, going back to the original days?
A. I have a few of those, and it’s nice to see that many of the restored
Cobras are looking pretty much like they did originally.
Q. Did you have Ford co-operation in doing the book?
A. It’s not an official book and whenever possible I tried to use my own photography rather than the over-used press shots. Some owners of particularly interesting cars sent me pictures that they took themselves.
Q. Are any of the owners well known?
A. I guess you don’t have to go very far in the Cobra world to run up against Lynn Park, who everyone calls “Mr. Cobra.” He let me shoot some of his ten Cobras at many events and helped identify many cars that I didn’t know the history of. In fact he wrote the forward.
Q. Anybody else we would know?
A. Steve Volk, of the Shelby-American Collection in Colorado. He provided pictures of several cars from their collection. He also wrote a preface to welcome readers to the subject.
Q. What camera do you use?
Wyss: I use a Nikon F3, with a 50mm close up lens or a 250 mm zoom. I recently bought a 28 mm lens, which distorts cars a bit more than I like but which makes they look muy macho.
Q.What film do you use?
Wyss: I am still using slide film, like Velvia. I like slides because I can look at them without going to a computer and trying to find the file. I may be the last guy out there using film eventually. I did give up my typewriter, though, so I’m not totally retro.
Q.Going back to historical pictures do you have any of Shelby when he was a driver?
Wyss: Yes, I do. I came across some images of him at a race in California, racing a Maserati and a Ferrari. A lot of the newer Cobra fans don’t realize that Carroll Shelby was a big–name sports car driver in the mid-’50s, so much so that Enzo Ferrari tried to hire him as a factory team driver.
Q. Why didn’t he go for that? That sounds like every driver’s dream?
Wyss: (chuckling) Because old man Enzo low-balled him so badly— wanting him to drive practically for free. Shelby could make more being a chicken farmer. So he stormed out of their meeting, reportedly saying something to the effect of: “Someday ah’m gonna come back here and beat your ass.” Which he did, in ’65, beating the Ferrari factory out of the World Manufacturer’s Championship.
Q.What picture do you like most in the book?
Wyss: One I didn’t take—of the 427 Super Snake twin Paxton car that Harley Cluxton sold at the Barrett Jackson. I knew about that car when it still being hidden from the IRS and I’m glad it re-surfaced in time to be in the book.(It sold for $5.5 million--Ed.) I am also thankful to SAAC official Jeff Burgy for finding the two Cobra re-bodied prototypes owned by a Detroit museum and documenting them so I could write about them. It’s a shame that these rare cars sit moldering away because the Museum doesn’t have funds to restore them.
Q. Doesn’t the hardbound “coffee table” book SHELBY by Randy Leffingwell pretty much fill this market niche?
Wyss: In terms of photography I have to admit that both David Newhardt and Randy Leffingwell are far better photographers than I—they wait, for example, all day for the light to be just right before pressing the shutter button. But I think that in my book I interpret many of my photos more than they do in the captions, giving the pictures their due as far as their relative importance in Shelby-American history. I would say that neither Leffingwell or Newhardt are experts in the marque, but are journeymen historians who go from one marque to another. This week it's Pontiacs, next week John Deere tractors. I’ve been into Shelbys since 1977 when I published my first book on the marquee Shelby’s Wildlife: the Cobras and the Mustangs.
Q.What help did you have from outsiders?
Wyss: Much help. The internet never ceases to amaze me. There’s always somebody who happens to have the picture I need and who is willing to help. And Lynn Park took the time to tell me about each car in each picture. He has many of the serial numbers memorized.
Q.Do you give equal space to the new generation Shelby Mustangs?
Wyss: Not as much because, when I wrote the book, the ’07 Shelby GT500 was the only one announced by the time the book went to press. Now of course we know there will be an ’08 GT500KR.
I also devote a couple pages to the Concept Cobras Ford rolled out in recent years, the Cobra Concept Roadster and the GR-1 coupe. I think both cars were misunderstood by enthusiasts who said they were too far afield of the styling of the Sixties Shelby Cobras. I disagree and wish that, now that the Ford GT is out of production, either of these could be Ford’s new supercars.
Q. Where can readers find the book?
Wyss: They can order it straight from the publisher, Iconografix. If you order a few, you are entitled to a bulk discount. They can be reached by phone at (715) 381-9755 or Fax (715) 381-9756. Their toll-free order line is (800) 289-3504
Thanks Wally!
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