# 1941 Girls Shelby Airflo Speedline



## Freqman1 (Jun 23, 2019)

So if you saw the Show-N-Tell you saw my latest Shelby acquisition and the reason I sold the girls bike last week. When I first saw this posted I asked the seller @CeeBee if he pieced this one together. He told me this came out of an attic of a wealthy family in Mississippi and that it belonged to a Great Aunt. A lot of unusual things about this bike. First it has no fork or frame decorations. It has a Morrow hub dated 1st qtr of 1941 and has Lobdell flat rims which I believe were introduced in '41. It has the aluminum guard and rack as well as the chrome fluted fenders but has flat braces generally found on much earlier bikes. The rear fender has the '40 style frenched rear reflector which was used postwar as well. The tank never contained a battery box and it has rivets where the switch would be. If you saw the original pics posted you will notice a toggle switch (since removed). This was added back in the day along with a homemade battery pack to power the headlight-never had a horn. Has Meteor pedals and oilcloth seat. Lastly this bike has a "B" serial number. Looks like one of the very last Speedlines put together with leftover deluxe parts. Clint serviced the bike and it rides great. I was really happy to add this one to my collection. More importantly I think I probably saved it from getting raped of its deluxe parts and used on a boys bike. V/r Shawn


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## rollfaster (Jun 23, 2019)

Beauty!!!


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## cyclingday (Jun 23, 2019)

That is very cool, Shawn.
These late 40/41 surplus Shelby’s are my favorite ones.
It’s interesting that yours still got the earlier deluxe guard and rack.
I’ve seen a couple with the fluted fenders like yours, but not with the aluminum guard and rack.
I still haven’t seen any advertising or catalogs from 40/41 that show those surplus bikes being offered.
Enough of them have popped up over the years to definitely determine their legitimacy/existence.
Congrats on the nice acquisition.


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## slick (Jun 23, 2019)

Any photos of it as found? Frame is a repaint, color doesn't match tank darts, also Shelby never had a blue that bright as the frame. It was darker with more black in it like the darts. The frame also has a bare metal clamp mark on it where a different guard was on that frame, not the aluminum guard. If that's the case, odds are it had a bigger skiptooth chainring which makes sense why the guard would be placed more forward for more clearance for the bigger chainring. The daisy chainring is smaller than the skiptooth ones. The guard was most likely a swoop guard during 1940/41. The rims are from a Safe-t-bike. All safe-t-bike shelbys I've seen have Morrow 1941 hubs with Lobdell hoops. The pedals, seat and dropstand clip also all have more patina than anything else on the bike except the tank, and if it was a 1940 or 1941 it would have the slide rail messenger seat or a lobdell horizontal spring for a safe-t-bike if it was a safe-t-bike which it isn't. In late 1940 the Safe-t-bike was introduced during Christmas for the 1941 year. Another Cabe member was building a few of these oddball shelbys from girls bikes awhile back. Same fenders, aluminum parts, etc. Could this be a leftover bike with surplus parts, sure, but... what I mentioned above still doesn't add up like the mismatched frame color, the obvious bare metal clamp mark, and the mismatch patina. I'm not claiming to be an expert on Shelby's, BUT, I own over 40 of them now from the 1934 motorbike style all the way through the 1951 style in mens and womens. All different frames, different options, peaked fenders to fluted. Your bike shows nice though. Cheers.


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## OSCAR...N... (Jun 23, 2019)

:eek:


.......Somebody


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## Freqman1 (Jun 23, 2019)

slick said:


> Any photos of it as found? Frame is a repaint, color doesn't match tank darts, also Shelby never had a blue that bright as the frame. It was darker with more black in it like the darts. The frame also has a bare metal clamp mark on it where a different guard was on that frame, not the aluminum guard. If that's the case, odds are it had a bigger skiptooth chainring which makes sense why the guard would be placed more forward for more clearance for the bigger chainring. The daisy chainring is smaller than the skiptooth ones. The guard was most likely a swoop guard during 1940/41. The rims are from a Safe-t-bike. All safe-t-bike shelbys I've seen have Morrow 1941 hubs with Lobdell hoops. The pedals, seat and dropstand clip also all have more patina than anything else on the bike except the tank, and if it was a 1940 or 1941 it would have the slide rail messenger seat or a lobdell horizontal spring for a safe-t-bike if it was a safe-t-bike which it isn't. In late 1940 the Safe-t-bike was introduced during Christmas for the 1941 year. Another Cabe member was building a few of these oddball shelbys from girls bikes awhile back. Same fenders, aluminum parts, etc. Could this be a leftover bike with surplus parts, sure, but... what I mentioned above still doesn't add up like the mismatched frame color, the obvious bare metal clamp mark, and the mismatch patina. I'm not claiming to be an expert on Shelby's, BUT, I own over 40 of them now from the 1934 motorbike style all the way through the 1951 style in mens and womens. All different frames, different options, peaked fenders to fluted. Your bike shows nice though. Cheers.




Yes I have pics as found and other than grips and tires this is exactly how it looked when taken out of the attic. I have other bikes, including a Shelby that are original paint bikes where parts don't match exactly. I don't think the components e.g. tanks, guards, fenders, were painted together or even on the same day. The guard had been mounted way too far forward and was moved back. I believe this bike to be a legit, unmessed with surplus bike. Patina seems matching to me on everything in person--dropstand clip? There isn't one. I grew up around paint--my dad was a bodyman for 50 years and as soon as I could hold sandpaper was working on cars. I don't claim to be an expert either but I've looked it over pretty good and see no evidence of a repaint. I currently own seven big tank Shelbys and have actually studied these a bit myself. Like Marty says no lit on these 'surplus' bikes and my money says they used stuff from the Safety Bike bins to build this bike just as you see it. V/r Shawn


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## slick (Jun 23, 2019)

Brake arm strap. Sorry... my brain functions faster than my fingers.

As far as paint differences, it must be an east coast thing because none of my over 40 Shelby bikes in my collection, OR the other 53 different manufactured ones  I own have mismatched color on them anywhere? Odd. Must be one in every thousand odds? 

Sorry but having 7 big tanks all within a couple year difference of each other doesn't make you an expert on a manufacturers history from start to finish in my opinion. You're right, there is no pattern in Shelby's history, BUT... when I "think" a fish smells rotten, doesn't mean I'll cook it and eat it anyways.


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## kccomet (Jun 23, 2019)

come on....really


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## Freqman1 (Jun 23, 2019)

Pics as it came out of the attic. V/r Shawn


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## higgens (Jun 23, 2019)

Nice! I  messaged him about it to. I glad it went to a good home where it won’t be parted


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## CeeBee (Jun 24, 2019)

I'll chime in as "the guy who got it from the guy who got it out of the attic".  
The bike belonged to the seller's wife's aunt when new.  The gentleman and his wife still lived in the family home where her mother and aunts were raised on property that has been family owned for generations.  The man told me the bike has been in the attic since he and his wife moved into the family home as a couple in the 80's.  I asked the wife about her knowledge of the bike and her answer was that "It's just always been in the attic since I was a kid."  These were not "bike people" and had no significant knowledge of what they were selling other than a brief google search where they mistakenly were searching for "1950's Shelby Bicycle".  When they could not find an exact reference to get a real value, they advertised the bike on Facebook as an "old bike" at way to cheap of a price to have been passing off a "forgery", so I assure you the bike has not been modified by an unscrupulous previous owner.
Shawn and I discussed multiple possibilities of the anomalies of what may be incorrect by catalog standards and side by side references, but the final analysis is that the bike is a legit late production assembly of parts.   I'm not going to get in a pissing contest over how many Shelbys I have owned, but I will say that I have owned several originals (including a late production unmolested long tank men's with a significant list of "mysteriously wrong, yet obviously untouched" parts) and I will stand by Shawn's assessment.


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## blasterracing (Jun 24, 2019)

This discussion is a perfect example of why I don't get involved anymore trying to give production dates and such about Shelby bikes.  It's a very nice Shelby Shawn, and if you ever feel like it needs to come back home to where it was made, just give me a yell.  I would be interested in it.


Tim Newmeyer
Flying Proud Racing
Shelby, Ohio


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