Shelby CSX History - CSX - The Birthday Car

Shelby CSX History

The Birthday Car

The Birthday Car
and the Shelby team
(picture courtesy of
Joel Jackson,
2nd from the right,
now at Racefab, Inc.
click to enlarge)

The Birthday Car was a special 16-valve VNT-powered white CSX that Shelby's crew built for his 65th birthday. It featured a Lotus head, Garrett/AiResearch VNT 25 turbo, white Fiberides, and a cockpit-adjustable Monroe suspension. There were apparently plans to put this combination into production, but the 1989 CSX-VNT eventually appeared with an 8-valve engine and in red and gold instead of white. This article appeared in the January 18, 1988 issue of AutoWeek. (Here is a text version of the article.)

See many more pictures of the Birthday Car, courtesy of former owner Paul Deaton, in the exclusive Birthday Car Gallery.


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A short article about the car was in the Summer 1988 issue of High Performance Mopar. Another photo of the Birthday Car also appeared in an editorial in the Mopar Action "1988 A Street & Strip Supercar Special."

Copyright ©1988 Harris Publictions, Inc. Used by permission. This document may not be reproduced, retransmitted, photocopied, etc., without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Protected by U.S. and international copyright laws.


High Performance Mopar	Mopar Action editorial (click to enlarge)

Brett Lindsey's son,
Matthew, with the
Birthday Car
(picture courtesy of
Brett Lindsey
click to enlarge)

The Birthday Car was sold to Brett Lindsey in 1994 at the Shelby Garage Sale. Brett says, "I purchased this very car at the Shelby Garage Sale on July 8, 1994, for $1,500. It had become the Shelby 'parts car' when I purchased it. I restored and sold it to Rick Johnson in Seattle, WA. The car was originally taken from the CSX-T shipment and equipped with a prototype TIII engine and Monroe cockpit-adjustable suspension. 'X-9' was the dash plaque number. It had 9,000 miles on it when I purchased it.... My oldest son, Matthew, helped me set the TIII back in after the paint. He loved to ride in this car; he probably knows more about the Birthday Car than old Carroll himself." Brett posted some information to the SDML while he was restoring the car. A transcript can be found here. In 2002, Rick reacquired the car from Paul Deaton, to whom it had been sold.

Birthday Car engine
in Mark Fink's
1989 CSX-VNT #405

With Shelby valve cover
(pictures courtesy of
Mark Fink
click to enlarge)

The original prototype TIII engine from the Birthday Car is now in Mark Fink's 1989 CSX-VNT #405. At first it had a "Dodge 16-valve" valve cover, but it now has a rare "Shelby 16-valve" cover, although it is slightly different from the original one. Mark says, "The car is #405 out of 500 total produced. It has the pre-production front and rear air dams with the NACA side ducts in the air dams, including the exhaust cut out in the rear air dam. The rims are the original gold Fiberide rims with the 'Shelby' name on the spokes of the rims.... The interior is the standard interior with the 'Shelby' cloth on the seats and the side panels. The exceptions are the radio, the A568 shifter, and the boost and EGT gauges mounted on the A-pillar. The brakes have been upgraded to the ultra-high-performance package with 11-inch front and rear vented rotors.... The transmission is an A568 out of a 1992 Daytona IROC R/T. The wiring harness was modified (by me) from a 1991 Spirit R/T. The radiator is a full-size four-row, originally made for a V8 Daytona, and the intercooler is from a Conquest TSI, mounted in the front nose of the CSX."

Birthday Car Ground Effects

In a discussion on the SDML in March of 2001 about the ground effects offered for the Shadow by Kaminari, Brett explained some things about them:

"Being the one who restored the Birthday Car and the first owner after Shelby, let me clarify some of the misinformation on the list regarding it and Kaminari ground effects.

"The Kaminari ground effects that were on the Birthday Car when I restored it are identical to the way the car was originally built, with the exception that the NACA ducts are only 50% as deep as when the car was originally built. The original NACA ducts on the car were so deep you had to cut holes in the bumper covers in the same shape for the ground effects to fit flush on the car. When I purchased the car in '94 at the Garage Sale, it had been converted over to '89 [CSX] ground effects, but [they] were still in primer paint. Then they toasted the motor, so it had become a parts car. When Kaminari originally designed the '89 [CSX] ground effects, it was done on the Birthday Car, and there was still clay-type stuff in the door jams and wheel opening moldings from the original molds. Shelby felt that cutting holes in 500 cars' front and rear bumper covers would be too labor-intensive, so they had Kaminari eliminate them. Why they went to the door filler panels on the production '89s I was never told, but when Kaminari decided to build the NACA kit back in '95, they had been paid to design the production version of the '89 CSX effects and felt it would be unethical to use the design that Shelby went into production with, since they were hired to design it. And since Shelby didn't use the exact design built on the Birthday Car, they felt they could sell it with out creating problems.

"Last Spring Kaminari had a fire and lost those molds in the fire. Today what you buy from Kaminari for the front air dam is a piece identical in appearance to the production ['89] piece: no NACA ducts, with the exception [that] it doesn't have the little fingers that turn into the mouth of the front bumper cover. You would have to be looking for it to even notice. I don't know if Kaminari has any other pieces available, other than the front any longer because of the fire .And if you need one for your car, I would seriously consider ordering one soon, since the original guy that was looking out for the Shelby Dodge pieces is no longer with the company. If the demand doesn't pick up, we will probably be out of luck. I got two, and they fit perfectly and appear very stock."

Wondering what a "NACA duct" is? Here's a definition from the Dictionary of Automotive Terms:

NACA duct: This is an air opening which was named after the National Advisory Committee for Aerodynamics [sic]. It was the American organization which developed the kinds of designs for low drag air ducts for jet engines. NACA ducts are used on cars to force air for engine breathing and cooling, for forcing air through the radiators, and for providing fresh air for the passenger compartment.

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