Bela Lugosi, Jr.’s Iconic Shelby GT 350 is Resurrected
Hot Rod reopens case of wrecked, unnumbered A/MP GT350 that was restored in the ’70s by Bela Lugosi Jr., and then it vanished.
Once upon a time, a Hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi left Europe for the United States aboard a merchant ship to further his career. He landed a role as Count Dracula in the Broadway adaptation of Dracula, which he played again in the now-classic 1931 film adaptation. After that, he remained in horror until his passing in 1956.
Before he left this world behind, though, Lugosi fathered a son in 1938, Bela George Lugosi, Jr. Lugosi Jr. went on to become a lawyer. He also, according to Hot Rod, once owned a special Shelby GT 350.
The GT 350 was once featured in Hot Rod‘s November 1977 issue, having undergone quite the transformation from what it once was. Per the article, the pony was “an unnumbered factory A/MP Shelby GT 350 with less than three miles showing on the odometer” which found itself smashed up. Holman-Moody, who was Ford’s official racing contractor at the time, took and flipped the beaten dead horse to another company before one lawyer brought it back to life.
In 1974, that lawyer sold the GT 350 to Lugosi Jr., who then logged some 12,000 miles with the car when the Hot Rod article was published. He took it to “all of the Shelby-style events,” showing off the car’s own style, complete with wide fender flares, center-mounted chrome exhaust, and a pair of chrome fuel doors straddling the louvered rear window.
Some time after the article was published, the GT 350 disappeared from view. Perhaps it was sold to another owner, who either held on to it or, as is usually the case, sold it to someone else. Hot Rod is even asking where this special car is today.
We don’t think it’s buried in a coffin or, worse, somewhere in a scrapyard. However, we do hope that, wherever the GT 350 is, it’s terrorizing all of the drag strips, seeking its teeth into the competition every chance it gets when it sees the green light in the dark of night.
Photos: Hot Rod
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