Hi Amigos ¡¡¡ Nice to see this great forum about my cherised Shelbys.Since my chilhood in Barcelona I have the privilege of be son of a carnut,my father was involved in the Barcelona´s fair and each year since 1966 I was in the Salon del Automovil,the Barcelona Motor Show.In this period Spain was not a democracy and was a closed market for the imported cars but then begins a little open window to the future and for this exceptional meetings the General Franco´s commercial ministry gives some importation licences for just three cars of each model and make.For this estrange reason some special and little companies have sold in Spain the same amount of cars than the big ones. The Spanish economy grows and groes in the sixties and there was a new group of whealty business men who want to drive luxury and exotic sport cars.The price of the car was no problem because you need to pay the double of the price in taxes and also some extra tip to the burocratics "helpers". Thanks to this legal statement of "just 3 cars" some of the spanish imported begins a very creative and profitable business...to change the name of the cars.For this reason in Barcelona,Madrid,Valencia and Sevilla Motor Shows you can buy Shelbys,not Mustang Shelbys,Pininfarinas not just Ferraris,Bertones not Alfas,Fruas not Lancias,Monteverdis,Isos,Isos Grifos,Jensens,Morgans,AMXs not American Motors and all the legendary low volume car manufactures all over the world...Sharks Capris from South Africa and Holdens from Australia Too¡¡¡ Why? Because there was more demand than offers..All the cars are normally sold before they come to the Show...There was the Good Old Times¡¡¡. In these days for me was more easy to see a ´69 Shelby GT 500 smoking tires in the lights of the Diagonal Avenue than a six cylinders Chevelle...because there was 3 GT500 Coupes,3 GT 500 Convertibles,3 Mustang Shelbys 500 Coupes and 3 more Convertibles(The spanish legal name name for the same cars of above)...total cars 12 Shelbys but just 3 Chevelles...ha,ha. The Shelby Cars was imported by a Spanish Company named Albion,S.A. from Madrid ,this company also have some agents in diferent towns,in Barcelona Subway S.L. was the Shelby dealer. Still I don´t have the exact numbers of all the cars legally imported by Albion...I don´t have the chance still to check the Shelby Register but I have an aprox idea of minimum of 20 Shelbys to 40 sold in the 65-70 years. I have the chance to own in the mids nineties a beautiful original and tired 1970 GT 350 Convertible in Grabber Yellow...in these days I just keep the title but not the V.I.N. in my memories...I need to look for all this old info¡¡¡. Years later I found the picture of my car in the Elegance Concours in the 1970 Barcelona Motor Show you can see it in my profile pic. More news soon...Greetings from Madrid Javier Rucabado
Yes,I have some more but I don´t have the copyrights of them...I´m afraid to use without permission.Maybe with a watermark...I´ll think about it. Did you look for something special or just fun?
