Former Shelby American mechanic and crew chief John Collins passed away in August, at the age of 77.
Collins left England in 1958 and first immigrated to Canada where he opened an automobile repair shop in Sudbury, Ontario. There he built his first racecar, but after suffering five years in the northern cold, he packed his family up and moved to Southern California.
The first place he went to find work was Shelby American, where fellow Brit Ken Miles hired him on the spot, saying he needed another Brit around the shop! Miles put Collins to work on his own 289 Cobra racecar, as well as the new Cobra Daytona coupe project. After the coupe project, Collins was put to work on the USRRC “King Cobra” project, before being moved onto the Ford GT program for 1966. Collins crewed on Miles’s GT40 at Le Mans, which crossed the finish line 1st, but due to Ford’s insistence on orchestrating the finish, was demoted by organizers to 2nd on a technicality.
However, the following year Collins was made crew chief for Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt’s GT40 MkIV, which went on to a historic win at Le Sarthe. After the GT40 program came to an end, Collins was put to work on the Can-Am cars of Jerry Titus and Peter Revson.
By 1969, after the closing of Shelby American’s race shop, Collins went to work for Lothar Motschenbacher’s Can-Am team, before opening his own shop in 1974, where he specialized in the restoration of historic racecars, eventually bringing his son Graham into the business. Father and son worked together on a wide variety of Can-Am and Formula machines right up until his death. John’s wit and wisdom will be sorely missed.
