John Chun designed cars for boys of all ages, for toddlers on their knees to their dads with a need for speed.
Chun, who built his American Dream story around Shelby muscle cars and Tonka Toys, died July 6 after battling stomach cancer. The Korean native, who for the past 27 years owned and operated a restaurant in Delano with his family, was 84.
Chun immigrated to California in the 1950s. He studied in Sacramento and then Los Angeles before landing a job with Ford as a design engineer for the Mustang's Shelby Cobra models launched by racing legend Carroll Shelby.
Working for Shelby, Chun made two highly visible contributions to the most American of 1960s muscle cars: the brand's recoiling cobra and the spoiler on the back.
Chun designed the coveted GT350 and GT500 models, consulted on the launch of Hyundai automobiles, and worked for Tonka Toys, which is what brought him to Minnesota. The now-defunct Twin Cities-based company was debuting a line of toy cars and wanted to hire an actual car designer to oversee the project.
As Tonka's fortunes waned, Chun and his family opened Chun Mee Restaurant in 1986 in the west metro, where Shelby memorabilia can be spotted.
It was only in recent years that Shelby's passionate drivers and wannabe owners came to fully realize and appreciate Chun's role with the model in the late 1960s.
Chun "was astonished about how much fuss people were making about him" whenever he traveled out of state to various events built around the Shelby brand, said Roger Sorel, who until late last year was Shelby American's director of sales.
