Mystery solved. Shelby Trust to sell Real Cobras

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by REAL 1

As David said DeBeneste is a very savvy business man. If this were about history they would build one of these cars 100% correct in every nut and bolt as they were brand new as delivered by Shelby from the LA Airport and put it in the museum for the preservation of history.

The problem is the nuts and bolts are BSW. Building a car with the correct BSW bolts would probably add $100,000 to the cost.

Are all the proceeds of these "completion" cars going to the construction of the museum and acquisition of whatever they are acquiring for it???? Don't know. Are any part of the funds going to "profits" into "pockets"? Don't know.

First, I don't know. I'm not in their books. But from what I can tell there isn't going to be a whole lot of profit in this for anyone. The money is probably mostly going to the museum. Bill is facilitating it all to help the Shelby brand. Sure he will probably be paid (he should be) but if he wanted to make $$$ he'd just make another business deal. Bill loves the Shelby brand and is one of the only guys who really got along well with Carroll on a personal level. I think Bill has the largest collection of Shelbys in the world--so this ENTIRE project isn't really that much money to him--(If not the largest collection, then certainly one of the largest. He has rows and rows and rows of Shelbys stacked up in his warehouse. It is an awesome sight to behold).

We charged a lot of money to put their parts together--because it is EXTREMELY expensive to build one of these. There just isn't a pot of gold in it for anyone. It took us a year to build the car. Compare that to the normal 4 weeks it takes us to build one and you can see I'd rather build one of our own rides for Shelby.

The point is these cars are not true completion cars and should not have CSX3000 vin#. Period. They are not CSX3000 cars. Period. Regardless of how beautiful or breathtaking they may be. A well turned out Continuation Cobra with all the right major bits to the eye is just as breathtaking to the observer.

I think Shelby can call them anything they want--CSX1000-2000-3000-4000...why not?

Are the buyers of these completion cars going to hoard them and keep them to themselves or share them with others to see? If they are keep in private collections no one will ever see how is that furthering the preservation of history? History has to be remembered to be preserved.

I think customers can do anything they want with their own cars. Why not?

As to the "originals" being the true preservationists of history, that is not 100%true. History to be preserved must be remembered first. The replica industry and the replicas of today help preserved and preserve history by keeping a car over 50 years old in the public conscience and minds. A run of the mill 1972 Toyota perfectly preserved is part of "history" too but who cares? That and many other cars have faded from "history" so to speak.

The second generation Shelbys are part of Shelby history now. Their importance in the future is still undetermined.

History is made every day its just that some of it turns out to be more important to people than others.

These are great questions/comments (ones that I'd expect of my own lawyer).

David