I thought if I waited long enough, we'd hear from someone with a little less
sympathy for Ole Shel, and that's genuinely OK.
Just personally, I think SAAC and Rick Kopec have had a great ride, considering
the cars are called Shelbys, and not Kopecs, and I hope no one is surprised
that at some point, Shelby or his family might want control of the biggest
national
club supporting Shelby cars. Rick is a smart guy, and he must have seen this
coming. There's the added factor that SAAC was presumably run as a for-profit
enterprise, not the dominant funding type for most US sports car clubs.
Also personally, I have no illusions that owning a Tiger places me in the Shelby
group of owners. I know what the Shelby connection is, and it's less important
than the Jensen tie-in, and I don't go around looking for Jensen emblems for
my car.
There's plenty to commend Shelby for in the Mustang and Cobra realm, starting
with the latest GTH / Shelby GT coupes that, as a package, are the best sorted
out Mustangs right now. As for the Shelby Cobra 289, it's still my favorite
sports car, 43 years on.
Who gets the credit for Tigers. The usual suspects: Ian Garrad, John Panks,
the Rootes family,Jensen engineers, current keepers of the flame T.Hall, S.
Alcala, Buck Trippel, Sunbeam Specialties and Classic Sunbeam, NORM (Must I
tell you which one?), and the various US, Canadian, and UK clubs, and (as PBS
is fond of saying) list subscribers like you.
Rande
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