Original Venice Crew Mustangs
Jim Marietta Bio
Jim Marietta, who had officially joined the original Shelby crew in early January 1965, came to Venice from North Royalton, Ohio. He had become quite adept at turning a wrench, having been taught the basics by his father.
Marietta was intrigued with the racing victories of the little Shelby Cobra. Wanting to be a part of that excitement, Marietta started to follow the circuit, flying to the different tracks, buying a general admission ticket and then hopping the paddock fence and working his way to the Shelby team’s pit area. While there, he started to lend a hand where he could.
“After a few races, Al Dowd took notice of me and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. If I showed up at an event, I could become an official member of the Shelby Team and wouldn’t have to pay admission”. At the end of that racing season, the 17-year-old kid from Ohio was offered a paying position if he wanted to relocate to California. Leaving home the day after Christmas 1964, Marietta arrived with tools in hand at 1042 Princeton Drive, the front door of Shelby American’s Venice headquarters.
While at Shelby during that historic era, Marietta learned more than any trade school could have taught him and he became an important part of the Shelby Team. He stayed with the crew through the move from the original Venice shop to the much larger hanger facility at Los Angeles International Airport. When work on the prototype Mustang GT350 with independent rear suspension ceased at the end of 1965, one of the Ford engineers that had been working with the Shelby Team encouraged Marietta to take a break from his mechanical career. He urged Marietta to go back to Ohio to get his high school diploma and then rethink his future. Heeding that advice, Marietta returned to school where he graduated, went to college and later to law school. Marietta then went into the field of forensic accounting where he would spend the bulk of his professional career.
Marietta never lost his interest in motorsports or forgot his days at Shelby. In 2013, he began to think that it would be interesting to recreate just one more GT350 Competition Model in time for the 50th anniversary. Marietta began to consult with other surviving members of that original crew. Master fabricator and, as Marietta refers to him, “indispensable” Ted Sutton was called on for his expertise. Peter Brock, who had developed many of the features for the GT350 Competition Models, was also contacted.
Sutton was no easy sell for signing up on this project, but Marietta had a great product and was quite the salesman. In the end, not only did Ted Sutton and Peter Brock sign on board, Brock offered his shop as the place to build this special car. On Feb. 15, 2015, the reborn GT350 Competition Model was transported to the Willow Springs Raceway near Lancaster, Calif., one of the tracks where the original cars had been tested. After the run, Sutton realized that this accomplishment had been conducted 50 years to the day from when Ken Miles scored the first victory for the GT350 with the “Flying Mustang” at Green Valley Raceway.
To say that this new GT350 was well-received would be an understatement as requests came in for more Mustangs to be built by these men to the original specs. It led Marietta to formally create Original Venice Crew (OVC) with Marietta serving as the CEO (though he bills himself as “Mechanic & Fabricator”). Colleagues Sutton and Brock also work in official capacities. OVC. It was agreed that no more than 36 of the Continuation Shelby GT350 Competition Models would be produced. With that, OVC was in business.
Scheduled to be our honored guest at the reception on April 27 will be Jim Marietta, a member of the Original Venice Crew at our Mt Pleasant/Pittsburg Road Trip. Check out our events for more info on this.