Info sought on timeline of Shelby Clubs

first club might have been one in Grosse Pointe MI

I have a register somewhere, from Grosse pointe MI of a club that existed in either the late Sixties or early '70s, a club
that has something like 20-odd pages of entries for Cobras only, including
British ones. This club had some members in common with SAAC
and I have heard that the first Cobra registry published by SAAC picked up where this one left off. But what makes it interesting is that this registry was published when Cobras were not yet rising in price that fast and in fact Cobras were just old used sports cars so one could say the entries were less prone to be influenced by the knowledge that this or that car is worth a fortune.(one reason I know about this temptation is that I once had a Ferrari Owner's club register and bought seveal cars out of it from owners who had dropped out of the club and didn't know the value of their cars).

One odd thing is that the club's address mis-spells the name of the town and one would think that whoever was editing it would know how to spell the name of their own town. But maybe this was before Spellcheck, or hell, even before computers! I have never checked it against the SAAC Registry but at least it exists as a pre-SAAC historical document.

 

At the time, perhaps the largest Shelby club began around June 1972, it was the Shelby Owners Association or referred to as the SOA, this continued til November 1975 when a couple key, very enthusiastic people broke away and formed SAAC, first publication was December 1975, known as The Marque, later became The Shelby American, perhaps to be renamed in the near future due to the unfortunate suit brought on by Carroll Shelby. The earliest club was a formed in California, a Cobra Club, Lynn Park I think was instrumental in its formation. Later, another Cobra Club which was formed in 1971 by Bruce Jodar and was added to SAAC in 1975 when Bruce could not handle the running of the club by himself. This provided a good basis for SAAC, regional sub groups of SAAC sprung up throughout the U.S and rapidly increased membership. In many respects this was the best of times, the Officers of SAAC, its Board of Directors and Advisory Board of Directors were the greatest collection of enthusiasts, most well versed in the history of Shelby American as it was known at the time. The list of others read like the who's who of Shelby American employees from Shelby to Remington, Brock to the race car drivers. Unfortunately, a few of these people left the group, some never to be heard from in Shelby club circles again. The magazines produced at that time, were in black and white, but they were done 6 times per year. These were known as The Marque and were each masterpieces in their own way, the editing was done by Rick Kopec, at this job, the best there has ever been for Shelby American history.
Everybody can have an opinion, but these to me were the best of times, people drove their cars, there were no trailers at conventions, parties at the conventions lasted into the wee- hours of the night, drag racing was going on around the convention hotel city streets. I guess the average age of the members were a lot less than now. Times change, a lot of the people buying these cars now are doing it for a status symbol or as a bragging right amongst friends. The people who deserve these cars now can no longer afford them. Go to a convention, most the people who attend and who also have an original car, ends up not bringing it. Any bench racing at the club's hotel bar at mid night or outside in the parking lot?, nope, most everyone is asleep.
Not sure you can gain anything from looking at the past, sure SAAC has had some issues over the years, all clubs do. There are many "old time SAAC" members I know who will never come back to SAAC again. Then there are a few old timers who were once the drag racers out side the convention headquarters, playing practical jokes on Howard Pardee, stayed up all night bench racing, drove their cars to and from the convention three states away, wrote articles for The Marque issues and will never send in a check to SAAC again, but they also have the wisdom to see what Shelby is doing now is just flat WRONG. At some point, Shelby's dirty laundry will all be exposed, perhaps this law suit will bring it out in the open, some of it is already out there. For everything SAAC has done for maintaining the history of these special automobiles, it is a shame what Shelby is doing now. Let there be two clubs,SAAC for the original cars produced from 1962-1970 and let Shelby have a club for all "stuff" produced after 1970, the 4000, 5000,6000, 7000 series cars , the Kirkhams, all the replicas, all the Eleanors, all the SR350's, all the new GT500's, the new Hertz cars, the KR's and the 12 other models which I am glad I can't remember. You can't relive the special times of the 1960's, Shelby put together an amazing group of employees from the southern California area, many today are true legends. These people today seem very happy with what they did in those few special years at Shelby American, what a shame Shelby is damaging his legacy right before our eyes.

 

what made the early club unique

What made the SAAC club unique for the first 20 years or so was the fact that the club had a keen interest in history and sent interviewers to interview
former Shelby employees, and executives who knew what questions to ask and they got good answers which increased enjoyment of the marque.

When the magazine became more infrequent in its publication, that lessened the info flow.

Also I think they could have contacted outside authors, etc. (such as editors of magazines or frequet writers about Shelbys and Cobras ) and asked them for stories or even raw notes of interviews or interview tapes which the club could run verbatum (sp/) where in a magazine there's never enough room. For instance, Matt Stone drove the first Cobra ever and ran a story in Motor Trend Classic but there was probably a lot of extra material that couldn't fit in the magazine he would probably have been happy to contribute.

Having the former managers, execs and racers speak at conventions was great too.

Unfortunately the original Shelby managers, execs, racers and mechanics got older--as did we all- and not nearly so many were available for interviews and/or speeches, so that is what makes the early days so memorable. I have been in a lot of clubs (Ferrari club, etc.) where you never get to meet the movers and shakers that made the company great because they are all over in Italy.

Not to say that there isn't lots of stuff happening right now with the Shelby marque and let's hope either the new club (which to my knowledge hasn't yet said if there will be a second issue of SHELBY magazine) or the old still existant club does some interviews because history is happening all over again with the new products which, whil not being contested on the world racing stage like the old cars were, is nonetheless of interest to many.

I can also see two clubs--one dealing with the original Shelby cars and one dealing with the new generation--but I just hope the editorial standard of any new publication(s) comes up to the good q & A interview standard of the early Marque magazines.

 

Hey 5S284, great to see you posting here again! Although I certainly wouldn't call you a "granddad of the Shelby world", especially since you're younger than me, you do have "granddad" knowledge of Shelby American history. And that is a great benefit to all of us.

 

And has protected with his very life ever since.......

 

I think mine had a different cover..but if it's around 22 pages, it's the right one

I have since lost the original cover. I know it was red, black and white tho.
I have a copy of the inside pages and it comes out to 23 pages with info printed on them, the factrs pretty close up to the margins.The return address was in Grosse Point (sic--It's supposed to be Grosse Pointe.)

I'd be curious to know which of those original owners in Michigan were scions of the auto industry, sons of the big execs who were making the decisions on what cars were built.