John Silva Shorttail

I have received 2 emails from a man who is hunting down a MAKO. Here is his email to me last evening.

"Andy,
I found your e-mail address searching for mako
info. Anyway, I have been chasing this one mako since 1992. When I
called
him 3 weeks ago he was ready to sell it and now he's not sure again.
It
appears to be a John Silve short tail car that is a 1968 auto 427
numbers
matching. The car was born as a convert. before the modifications. It
has a
one piece lift off top and custom interior. It can be a nice car with a
total resto. So I do not own the car yet and when I do if you are
interested I will contact you again. Thanks"

What do u think....What would this car be worth????

Andy

Anybodys guess, put it on ebay and find out.

If you dont want it let me know.

I don't know how many Macos Silva built from a convertible, for sure the first one, but if i remember it wasn't a short tail.

I ' m Nelson DaSilva my fathers name is Paul. Not to long ago we found a Maco and it is a John Silva convertible short tail with only two tail lights. I dont know how many are out there but i would like to know more information on the car. I seem to believe that it is a original John silva Maco shark prototype because it is not put together like a body kit but it seems to be a solid car

Post some pictures and any information you have on the car.Send more macos!

I ' m Nelson DaSilva my fathers name is Paul. Not to long ago we found a Maco and it is a John Silva convertible short tail with only two tail lights. I dont know how many are out there but i would like to know more information on the car. I seem to believe that it is a original John silva Maco shark prototype because it is not put together like a body kit but it seems to be a solid car

Just what do you mean by this. Not put together like a body kit but is a solid car. ?????

My father found the car in a man's backyard about two years ago. we are from Peabody,MA so we know all about the John Silva Maco Shark. When he went to ask the man if he was selling it the guy practically chased him away. all of a sudden about six months back the gave us a call out of the blue and asked if my father was still interested. we thought he would ask a lot of money for it but ended up selling it for short money. As for "solid car" i don't know what i was thinking because it was really early this morning. What i wanted to say was that after the twenty years that it's only noticeable flaw is in the rear where the gas cap is. you can see the lines around it cracking where he worked on it.

Send me pics, I will post them for you.
makoshark@triad.rr.com

I have seen a few with a longer door cap cutting into the rear wheel well cant decide if I dig that on a street car especially if I wanna run a big old flare. but then the big flares cuts into the door so 6 of one 1/2 dozen of the other,
but what is the "short tail" what is the difference, do you have any pictures of each so I can see it as I feel I am missing something.

Cheers,
P.

Hi- I think what is being called a shorttail is the removal of 16 inches from the rear deck area which is how John Silva did mine. He never gave me a choice of any other way. There is no spare. Just use flat fix! He built mine around 1973. I drove my 68 from Phila to Boston to have it done. If the raised opening wheelwells are being used in the rear to match the front. 2 1/2 inches higher I think, but its been a lot of years, so I could be off, then it gets a little close at the rear of the door. Maybe an inch without measureing. You cant move the opening back because the wheel wont be centered. . Mine was built up a little behind the soor to curve outward because I had John install small mudguard flares at the bottom edge of the front and rear of each flare.
Skip

Here are some pix............. old and newer of my short-tail I bought from Randy. You can see how the door opening works in these pix ! Hope this sheds some light on the difference in the short-tail.

By the way...................... Skip --------- We're still waiting to see some pix of your car !!!!! Rick

Skip, you mentioned that there was no room for the spare.............. I decided to go this route, since the rear is so prominent !!!!

This car sure is lookin' good !! Randy- I knew I should have bought this car when you offered it to me. Now I'm bumming. Am I the only one that notices the "Shark Bite" under the rear end, ordoes anyone else see it?? Nice touch !! Keep up the great work.

skip wrote: Hi- I think what is being called a shorttail is the removal of 16 inches from the rear deck area which is how John Silva did mine. He never gave me a choice of any other way. There is no spare. Just use flat fix! He built mine around 1973. I drove my 68 from Phila to Boston to have it done. If …

Skip,
That shines some light on it and agrees with what me and my 'glass partner came up with,
I doubt that a "short tail" mold was pulled when all it took was hacking a strip out of the Mako tail, you say that is 16" or was yours a "standard" mako rear clip,
Do you have pics of your car?

I have seen a Mako rear that the trailing point of the rear window ends right at the center of the duck tail and then I have seen the ones that have a bit larger space between window point and duck tail,

The body I am in the process of buying ( trying ) has the point right at the duck tail and the door cap is into the rear fender, it has somewhat large flares and the 68-69 inside out fender gills

The wheel wells were always a irky pet peeve with me, they just look silly, all that space from top of tire to bottom edge of wheel well, makes the car look like it's sitting too high,
I have to wonder what was the reason Silva did it that way,
I know some people lower that wheel well edge and make it look far better,

454can-am
You posted your reply while I was posting mine, ok, the body I am woking to buy bacially looks like what you just posted,
That is what I was talking about, if that is the short rear then the one I am trying to get is a short tail too,

454CanAm wrote: Here are some pix............. old and newer of my short-tail I bought from Randy. You can see how the door opening works in these pix ! Hope this sheds some light on the difference in the short-tail.

By the way...................... Skip --------- We're still waiting to see some pix of your ca …

Someone made a shorttail mold and made at least a few copys. I think one of our members(probably Randy or Wayne) had and or sold one. Maybe it was the one that was on flea bay. It could been David. Didn't he have a Mako piece in his auction?

454CanAm wrote: Skip, you mentioned that there was no room for the spare.............. I decided to go this route, since the rear is so prominent !!!!

Paul, I will agree with you on the rear wheel well hight. I never liked that too much. It does look funny. Looks like the air shocks were pumped up too much if it had them. I had huge tires on mine, but it still looked jacked up. There must be a way to fix that. Lots of work I'm sure. Time to 'channel' the body down.

car guy wrote: This car sure is lookin' good !! Randy- I knew I should have bought this car when you offered it to me. Now I'm bumming. Am I the only one that notices the "Shark Bite" under the rear end, ordoes anyone else see it?? Nice touch !! Keep up the great work.

It's not that hard of fiberglass magic to lower the top of the wheel wells, I think both ends look as you put it "On air shocks" just silly with everything on the road that's really cool going as low as it can, no one wants to look like they have a body lift on a vette,
The other thing I noticed is some flares look super on the Mako and some look super crappy.

I don't want to say too much about either of the Makos I am working on scoring right now,
I don't have a lucky face and I don't want to jinx the deals,

Hey, Wayne, I saw your one Mako on Fleabay, I had no idea that it had some 80-82 rear tail on it, I imagine the serious Mako fan will not dig that,
Was it on the car when you got it, or were you trying a custom touch?

Back to the Short tail talk,
I was looking at the one above and you know it gives the car a very "Cheeta" look,
Remember the old Cheeta racers?

On the Bohannon Mako,
About when was it first offered for sale?

dreamer wrote: Post some pictures and any information you have on the car.Send more macos!

I THINK I HAVE THE SAME STYLE CAR. 1968 427 390 HP 4 SPEED RAG TOP WITH ONLY TWO REAR LITES TILT NOSE SQ HEAD LIGHTS. I WAS TOLD IT BELONG TO PETER REVSON. THE F-1 DRIVER BUT I NEED TO VERIFY THAT.GOT THAT INFO FROM THE PREVIOUS OWNER. IM IN LOWELL MA. SEND ME A PICTURE AND I;LL SEND YOU SOME SHOTS OF MY CAR. ITS STILL IN STORAGE ABOUT 8 YEARS NOW. HERES MY E-MAIL JOHNNY__ACES@MSN.COM TALK TO YOU SOON.

rockcrusher67 wrote: Just what do you mean by this. Not put together like a body kit but is a solid car. ?????

Hey Rick, do me a favor and take some close up's
of both the rear section of the door jam and
back side of the door for me.

I'm looking for some very high detailed images.

Thanks for your help.

McBrain