Bring together Ford-powered special interest cars, Carroll Shelby’s Original Venice Crew and happy enthusiasts, and you would say the Third Annual Shelby Tribute at the Carroll Shelby Foundation and future museum in Gardena, California, last Saturday, May 16, was a raving success! Racing history’s great Mustangs and Cobras blended with modern pony cars featured in hundreds of displays, and fans of “the snake” ate it up.
A special panel of the “Original Venice Crew” led by iconic designer Peter Brock, with Duane Carling, Bernie Kretzschmar, Allen Grant, Jim Marietta and Ted Sutton, had the large audience hanging on every word as a period slide show illustrated those early racing years. Los Angeles SAAC President Randy Richardson spent two full hours interviewing the group, some of whom recently completed — at Brock’s BRE Shop in Henderson, Nevada — a bespoke Independent Rear Suspension GT350, which was on display.
In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of both the 427 Shelby Cobra and GT350, the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust revealed a number of “insider projects,” including a remaining original Shelby Competition Chassis racecar that was started but never finished. Also on display were two frames that were never wore a skin — stirring the imagination with dreams of what could be…. The newest Shelby racecar, the Mustang Shelby GT, sporting a supercharged 627-hp power plant, wowed the enthusiasts strolling among the rows of Blue Oval horsepower.
The continuing interest in Shelby and his life’s accomplishments drives the completion of the museum, housed in Shelby’s former Goodyear Tire distributorship. The building serves as a hopeful home base for the legend and continues to host events as the foundation works to raise the funds to outfit the building with relics and exhibits. For complete information about the Shelby American Automobile Club please visit www.saac.com
