Brant, that is one of the great things about the Shelby cars. They seem to be very well documented.
I assumed your car was the only GT-350 to get sold to Dana Chevrolet so it's extremely interesting to hear there may have been others. No doubt it was due to Peyton Cramer's presence. Would any of them have been '67 or '68 Shelbys?
I have some potential contact info for Ed Schwab and I'll email that to you.
P.S. What's the story on back-up lights? I see your car doesn't have any.
Jon,
Thanks for your email.
I re-visited the fact that other GT350s were sold to Dana. By just looking at the Registry, it would be difficult to go through all of the entries to determine how many cars were sold to Dana. The 65-66 registrar, may be able to "sort them" and give me a list. I would also have to look into the '67-68 models, although I'm much more familiar with the '65-66 cars.
I did look up the other '66 that I knew was sold to them. It too was sold as a demonstrator. I'm guessing that all of the GT350s that Dana got were basically used cars, rather than brand new units. While there was a relationship there with Peyton Cramer, it would have been unusual for SA to sell a brand new GT350 to a non-Shelby dealer, much less a Chevrolet dealer.
The back-up lights? Great observation!
Shelby American needed to release the new '66 GT350 models in the fall of 1965 when all of the '66 model cars were introduced. Since no '66 Mustangs for SA to modify were being produced until late in the summer of '65, they needed some cars to get ready.
252 1965 Mustangs were ordered from Ford to be modified into the first '66 GT350s. These started arriving at SA in July of 1965. As stated, they were actually '65s with 1965 Ford VINs. They were ordered with the GT gauge package, so they had the '66 style instrument bezel. They, of course, all have '65 style interiors (seat upholstery, door panels, and dash pads were different from '65 to '66). Two groups were ordered with folding rear seats, and the other two groups were ordered with rear package trays which were unique to the '66 model GT350s. BTW, most all of the '66 GT350s had rear seats even though they were listed as optional by SA. Only between 85 and 90 of the total '66 GT350 production had the rear package tray.
Back to the back-up lights...they were optional on '65 Mustangs, and no '65 GT350 had them. All of those 252 cars did not have them either.
You can check out more about these cars that are now referred to as Carryover GT350s at the website
https://carryovergt350.com/