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The SHELBY AMERICAN
246 Fall 2015
case for cars with actual race his-
tory to be exhibited at speed on a
track. Since then, other vintage
racing organizations have sprung
up and compete for track dates and
competitors. Historical require-
ments were relaxed by some organ-
izers because they noted fewer
entries with history as the value of
these cars increased. There has
been a continual push to allow
Cobra roadsters and Daytona
Coupe replicas to be recognized as
legitimate vintage entries. Rather
than a sweeping relaxation of the
historical requirement, Cobras are
accepted on a case-by-case basis.
The fallback position will even-
tually be, “cars must appear period
correct.” This has already hap-
pened with GT350s. Not only are
street Shelbys with competition
equipment allowed to race in U.S.
events but Mustangs which never
saw the inside of Shelby American
are accepted by sanctioning bodies
who make it a habit not to look too
closely when one of these sheep-in-
wolf’s-clothing is presented for
technical inspection.
And can you blame them? It’s
a poor business decision to turn
away paying customers. Limiting
starting fields to only a handful of
legitimate race cars with verifiable
history is a recipe for the extinction
of vintage racing. It’s probably only
a matter of time before it becomes
“run-what-ya-brung” where only
the most outrageous examples are
turned away.
Reading about these “new”
lightweight Jaguar XKEs provided
a real deja vu moment for us. Re-
call 23 years ago: in 1992 when
Carroll Shelby was more or less
publicly shopping the idea of com-
pleting 44 Cobra 427 S/Cs which
had never been built in 1965. Or, as
the story was told by Ol ‘Shel with
his best-buddy, good ole boy, arm-
over-your-shoulder, syrupy Texas
drawl, the chassis existed and had
been given serial numbers back in
1965 but were never completed.
They had been sitting in a ware-
house in Texas all these years.
1 in 833 CHANCES TO WIN THIS NEW SHELBY GT350
DO YOU FEEL LUCKY? WELL, DO YA, PUNK?
SAAC CONCOURS : THE HOBBY’S GOLD STANDARD
Drawing for the Shelby American Collection’s 2016
GT350 Raffle Car will be held on Saturday, December 5,
2015 at the museum in Boulder, Colorado. You don’t have
to be present to win. The number of tickets has been lim-
ited to 5000. They are $50 each and if you purchase five
tickets you get one more free. That lowers the odds from
one in 5,000 to one in 833. Don’t want to keep the car?
You can opt for $50,000 in cash. For details, go to
http://shelbymustangraffle.com And good luck!
The large auction companies know a thing or two about marketing. When they
get a car with unique history they use photos of it in ads, promotions and in
their auction catalog. They call them “feature cars.” And they don’t rely on own-
ers to send snapshots; they send professionals to shoot these cars. Russo and
Steele used this stunning photo of 6S213 to advertise their auction in Monterey.
In the description of the car, they cite the following: “
This amazing GT350 is
one of only two Shelbys to earn the following elite awards: •SAAC National
Convention Division I Concours Premier Award (perfect authenticity score)...
”
A SAAC Concours award is the gold standard in this hobby. SAAC’s concours
judges are universally recognized as the unequalled experts when it comes to
production details of these cars. We take concours judging seriously because
we realize that the club’s reputation rides on it. It’s not just about a trophy.