Google the name Larry Nash, and you’ll find a pretty impressive list of credentials: drag racing, Indianapolis 500, hot rods, big name drivers, and SCCA National Championships.
And listed there on the Nash Performance website, between Formula Atlantics and Motorola Cup, is Shelby Can Am (SCA). Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what Shelby Can Am is—the series only ran three years, from about 1993 to 1996. That’s when Chrysler’s money ran out.
The SCA class was developed by Carroll Shelby as an SCCA “Spec” class, which means that all the cars had to remain unmodified after delivery. Engines couldn’t be opened, suspension points couldn’t be relocated, and so on. The reason for this, of course, was to determine who was actually the best driver, because all the cars are virtually identical.
“Carroll Shelby got a gift from Lee Iacocca to run the Dodge Shelby Pro Series for three years,” says LeeAnne Nash, Larry’s wife and former series director. “The series ran support races during CART, SCCA Trans Am, and NASCAR weekends.”
The cars were fairly breathtaking to look at: the bodies were designed by Peter Brock and featured open wheels in the front and enclosed, skirted wheels in the rear. The cars were powered by 250-horsepower Dodge V-6 3.3 liter engines. They were powerful and light, equipped with a differential ratio that allowed the driver to break the rear tires loose at will!
After a 60-day trash, Larry and LeeAnne Nash turned the one-time mongrel into a slick racer once again. Here the car is on its vintage racing debut in Sebring. BILL ABLE COLLECTION
Only 72 Shelby Can Am racers were built before the series stalled out in 1996, and not many remain today. Nash believes that as many as 50 cars have been sold over the years to racers in South Africa, where they have been converted with new bodywork into a different class.
When discovered in a race trailer after many years, the Shelby Can Am was a neglected and forgotten racer that had been put away wet. In its day, however, the car could break its wheels loose in top gear! BILL ABLE COLLECTION
One of the early cars was purchased by Gene Harrington, who after racing it to some success—including a podium finish at Road America—simply parked the car in storage when the series ended. And there it sat for the next 15 years, untouched.
“The car just deteriorated on all fronts,” Nash says. “Critters were living in it, and in order to race it again, the hydraulics, wiring, and fuel cell were in need of replacement.”
Bill Abel had heard about Harrington’s old racer from his friend Scott Harrington—Gene’s son—former Shelby Can Am Champion (1992). The younger Harrington named a price, and Abel bought it.
After so many years, it needed a complete restoration. The once flowing bodywork was in rough shape, and the restoration was a major job. Able reached out to Larry Nash for the restoration.
Nash returned to his old notes from when he campaigned Shelby Can Ams for various drivers in the mid-1990s. He wanted to source the original contractors—gears were particularly difficult to locate.
Soon, however, a rapid restoration was under way to prep the car for a vintage event in Sebring. The car’s completion date was estimated at just 60 days. New plumbing, electrics, bodywork, paint, and a complete mechanical overhaul was completed, and the car was once again ready to hit the track.
Today, the car is perhaps the best, most complete Shelby Can Am on the planet. And it is again being driven in anger on vintage road racing circuits. “I didn’t restore it to sit in a museum,” Abel says. “I wanted to race it again.”