The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 5 Will a color change affect the car’s value? This is often a consid- eration, and chances are it will. A different color can be used by the buyer as a reason to deflate the value of a car. Potential buyers can be counted on to use something like this to grind the seller. That doesn’t mean a buyer doesn’t like the car’s color; it’s just a common ploy to negotiate the price down. On the other hand, most people approach the question as what will make them happy – not some the- oretical next owner. If you worry about the next owner, you proba- bly should keep the car in the garage, don’t put another mile on it and don’t touch it. And if that’s the case, then what pleasure are you getting from your ownership? The longer you keep the car the more it will be worth when you sell it. Probably. But if you are afraid that anything you do to it or with it will diminish its value, then we have to ask, why own it? Where have all the car maga- zines gone? We discussed this in last year’s Spring issue. If you’ve cruised by a newsstand or the magazine rack in your local super- market lately you’ve noticed there are only three or four car maga- zines where there used to be two dozen or more. There are lots of reasons why most have disap- peared. Costs have gone up, adver- tising has gone down along with readership. A lot of younger read- ers are more comfortable reading online. Print media is seen as old- fashioned or outmoded; horse-and- buggy technology for dinosaurs. The Internet aside, there is still a niche for the printed word. Some people just like magazines. They are convenient and portable. The most often heard reason is to be able to take them into the bath- room. You don’t have to view them through a microscopic screen or a desk top monitor. But don’t look for something that is broad in scope or will appeal to everyone. Ford ’ s New CEO August 4, 2020. Today Ford an- nounced the elevation to Chief Execu- tive Officer of Jim Farley. He will replace retiring Jim Hackett who has held the position for three years. Far- ley, 58, is a SAAC member and is read- ily acknowledged as a “car guy” – just what the company needs. It already has plenty of accountants, lawyers and marketing experts. Now it has some- body who bleeds Ford Blue at the com- pany’s reins. Lucky us. Farley is the owner of several per- formance cars, most notably a 427 Cobra, CSX3195 and 289 Cobra, CSX2330, both of which he vintage races. In fact, at a vintage race at Mon- terey this past August he swept the field in his 289 Cobra. His garage also holds a ‘32 Ford Highboy, an ‘05 Ford GT, a ‘78 Lola T289 racer, a ‘12 Boss 302 Laguna Seca (serial #002) and a Honda CB700 Super Sport. Farley has been on an upwards tra- jectory at Ford since joining the com- pany after working at Toyota. He has served in this country and in Europe at a number of increasingly high level of jobs – Ford’s way of grooming some- one destined for bigger and better things. In March of 2020 he was ap- pointed to Chief Operating Officer, back in March, the second in command at Ford. Five months later he was seated in an office on the top floor of Ford’s Glass House in Dearborn. SAAC member Bruce Meyer, a super enthusiast who is involved with just about every car event that takes place on the West Coast, said of Farley, “ He’s not afraid to make bold moves. And even though he is an enthusiast and probably, if it were up to him, they’d all be performance cars and race cars, he’s smart enough to know what sells and how to trim the line down and how to bring down the bot- tom line. And that’s what Ford needs. It’s not a job to Jim, it’s a passion. ” Ford has some great things coming around the corner, like the new Bronco and Mach-E and some exciting cars beyond them (that no one is willing to talk about in any detail). We’re happy to see Jim Farley at the helm of Ford. It’s been a while since a real car guy has occupied the top slot. He’s the right guy at the right time. CSX2330