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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Actually, we recall starting
something similar in SAAC back
around 1978 or so. We called it a
“No Nothing Meet” and it was in
response to the trend within the
club where regional meets had be-
come more and more complicated
because regional leaders and/or
event committees had been se-
duced by the kind of enthusiasm
they had seen at SAAC’s national
conventions. They sought to make
these local events a type of “mini-
convention” and tried to include
everything that annual conven-
tions had: a large headquarters
hotel that had a large parking
area, a car show with trophies, an
evening dinner and program with
guest speakers and goodies like t-
shirts and dash plaques.
Naturally, this took a lot of ad-
vanced planning, preparation and
promotion. A registration was re-
quired (pre-registration to collect
fees in advance to help offset ex-
penses which had to be paid for in
ahead of time and also to provide
event organizers with a rough idea
of how many participants they
could expect, as well as a staffed
registration table at the event).
These regional leaders discovered
that this level of event required a
lot of work and in many cases after
putting one or more weekend
events on, it was more than they
wanted to commit to. The number
began to decrease.
SAAC suggested a simple al-
ternative to these large regionals
weekend events, which we dubbed
the “No-Nothing Meet.” Basically,
someone (usually a regional officer,
but not necessarily) chose a date
and location and put the word out.
Weather permitting, whoever
wanted to go, would. There were no
registration fees, no t-shirts, no
dash plaques, no car show, no tro-
phies, no catered meal, no staff in
charge of running things and no
rain date.
No nothing
. Just bring
your car, show up, look around and
socialize. Kind of like, now that we
think of it, Cars & Coffee.
Summer 2016 7
AND THE WINNER IS...
GOVERNOR GURNEY
Someone who will be announced on December 10, 2016 at the Shelby American
Collection in Boulder, Colorado. The car in this year’s drawing contest is a 2016
Shelby GT350, chassis #G2265, Magnetic Gray with the track package. It is
loaded with every GT350 bell and whistle and tickets are $25 for two (with one
bonus ticket) all the way to 80 tickets for $1,000 (with 120 bonus tickets), with
five other increments between them. The non-profit museum uses the drawing
as a fund-raiser and by purchasing tickets you are, in effect, contributing to
the museum. And if you are lucky, you will get to drive a new GT350 home from
Boulder. https://shelbyamericancollection.tapkat.org/win2016shelbygt350/
Long before California elected Arnold
the Governator, there was a small
group backing Dan Gurney. This pic-
ture of a Shelby American truck
[
right
] was taken in October of 1966.
Note: this campaign should not be con-
fused with the original Gurney for
President campaign, started by
Car
and Driver
editor David E. Davis Jr.
which began in that magazine’s May,
1964 issue. The automotive segment of
the electorate turned out not to be
quite as large as imagined and the
Gurney campaign never caught fire.