Jim Starling at the Shelby Heritage Museum!

Men and Motors

Join us on an exciting journey as we explore the Shelby Heritage Museum with Jim Starling!  Uncover the rich history of automotive excellence and immerse yourself in the captivating stories behind the iconic Shelby vehicles, from classic designs to ground breaking innovations!  ------------------ Enjoyed this video? Don't forget to LIKE and SHARE the video and get involved with our community by leaving a COMMENT below the video!   Check out what else our channel has to offer and don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to Men & Motors for more classic car and motorbike content! Why not? It is free after all!  Our website: http://menandmotors.com/  ----- Social Media -----  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/menandmotors/ Instagram: @menandmotorstv Twitter: @menandmotorstv  If you have any questions, e-mail us at talk@menandmotors.com  © Men and Motors - One Media iP 2023

Transcript

00:00 Hello folks, welcome to Men and Motors and I'm here today at the Shelby Heritage Centre

00:07 as you can see.

00:08 Now this is a bit of a museum of Shelby, tells you a bit about Carroll Shelby and his life

00:12 and we see some of the important cars that were part of his life.

00:17 But it's also a working workshop for Shelby American and essentially you'll get your new

00:22 model Ford, have it bought here, they spend some time with it and then you drive out in

00:27 your new Shelby version.

00:29 So let's take a look inside, I hope you like this one, give it a thumbs up and let's go.

00:35 So here we've got number one of the Shelby GT350.

00:39 Now the GT350 was actually advertised as the ladies Shelby, as the ladies Mustang in the

00:45 marketing back in the day when it was released.

00:48 And the 350 doesn't actually mean anything.

00:52 You might think that's 350 cubic inch or 350 horsepower but basically they come up with

00:57 this car and Carroll Shelby evidently was quite an impatient man and he said what are

01:03 we going to call it?

01:04 And the designer said I don't know, what should we call it?

01:07 And it was what about this, what about this and Shelby was like no, no, no and he said

01:12 how many steps is it from your office to here where we're standing right now?

01:18 And the guy said I don't know, maybe 350?

01:21 And he said there you go, Shelby GT350 and that's how it got its name.

01:26 So if you thought this was a 350 horsepower car, you were wrong.

01:31 Look at this one folks, prototype model of the GT500 Super Snake.

01:35 I mean what a car this thing is.

01:38 Obviously iconic paint job, the white with the stripes going down the middle and just

01:43 a beautiful car.

01:45 As I'm speaking we'll show you this interior.

01:48 As you can see this has got a fire extinguisher in it, very, very classic design.

01:52 It's absolutely amazing, every inch of this car just says performance and style, I love

01:59 it.

02:00 Of course it all began with Shelby with the Cobra like the one we see here and there's

02:08 quite an interesting story with that.

02:10 When Shelby put together the first Cobra, he took it to car events all around the world

02:15 and had the car photographed for brochures and all the rest of it and every time he turned

02:20 up with a different colour car.

02:23 He didn't quite have the budget to produce all those cars, enough to fill a brochure

02:27 or to debut a different one at various shows.

02:30 So basically he had one car that just constantly got repainted.

02:35 Very very clever, people thought it was a bigger company than it was, people thought

02:38 they had all these cars, all these different colours and actually it was just one with

02:43 different levels of paint.

02:45 They used to have number one in here, last time I visited here they had number one in

02:49 here, the prototype and someone told me that ten years before Carroll died, he got offered

02:54 30 million dollars for it and immediately declined.

02:58 So I can only imagine what that car is worth today.

03:01 In 1963 Shelby began work on what would become the Daytona Coupe with Pete Brock.

03:07 The whole reason for the Daytona Coupe was to produce a car light enough and with good

03:11 enough aerodynamics to be able to compete at Le Mans and in fact to do 200 miles an

03:17 hour down the Mulsanne Strait and that's what they managed to do with this.

03:21 This car won at Bridgehampton with Dan Gurney behind the wheel and it was the first time

03:26 an American driver in an American car had won an FIA race.

03:36 In 1965 Shelby moved over to a facility at Los Angeles International Airport and it started

03:43 work on the GT40 for Ford in their attempt to actually go and win at Le Mans and I think

03:51 the rest as they say is history.

04:00 And if you've seen that movie, this appears in pretty much the first scene of Carroll

04:04 Shelby driving it along.

04:05 It's an Aston Martin but underneath it's not, it's border alert.

04:11 Yeah, that's actually used in the movie and it's in the first scene.

04:17 This is a very special Cobra here, this was Carroll Shelby's last Cobra.

04:21 So it's a car that holds a special place in the hearts of the people that work here.

04:27 He had this at 88 years old, obviously just a few years before he passed away.

04:33 He did 200 miles an hour in this car at that age which is fairly incredible.

04:37 They did have to put an automatic transmission in this one because he was no longer able

04:42 to work a clutch because obviously quite a heavy clutch usually in these kind of vehicles

04:46 but a very special thing and a great thing to see and a great thing for them to have

04:52 here at the Heritage Centre.

04:54 In 2011 Shelby began development of what would become the most powerful Mustang ever.

05:00 This would be the Shelby 1000 with 1100 brake horsepower.

05:04 Carroll himself was closely involved in the R&D of this car and really quite a special

05:10 thing.

05:18 So these are really interesting cars here.

05:20 Instead of a kit car it means you can actually buy a completely functional rolling chassis

05:26 minus the engine and transmission.

05:29 So you can literally put a power plant of your choice into that car and you've got yourself

05:34 a fully fledged running and driving Shelby.

05:37 You can do what you want with the finish.

05:38 They come like this which I think looks amazing as it is.

05:42 See if you wanted to paint the car you could but I mean look at that.

05:48 Here you can see the Cobra example of one of these amazing cars.

05:56 They're called continuation cars.

05:58 As I said, not kit cars, continuation cars.

06:02 I've got some examples of some more thorough bred race vehicles here and just one off special

06:10 editions of them.

06:11 It's called Wings of Pride Super Snake.

06:14 Very very cool.

06:15 We've got plenty of vintage stuff.

06:19 If you're in any way interested in Ford performance cars or in Shelby or the story of Shelby.

06:27 This is a man that went from being a trainee fighter pilot, had heart condition, so went

06:34 to start training fighter pilots to being one of the most successful, one of the most

06:41 influential car designers, producers in the world who designed a car that went and won

06:47 Le Mans against all the odds up against Ferrari.

06:51 This is a place you simply must visit if you come to Las Vegas.

06:54 Of course you've nothing to come in and have a walk around.

06:57 They do great guided tours here as well where they've got lots of information for you on

07:01 the vehicles and the actual gift shop is probably one of the coolest ones I've ever visited

07:09 in my life.

07:11 I'm also going to show you now the workshop.

07:13 Obviously as I said at the start, you can just get your production Ford and have it

07:19 booked in at Shelby.

07:22 They come, the cars come in here for a number of weeks.

07:26 They're booked up several weeks in advance, I think about 12 or 16 weeks in advance.

07:31 Your car comes in here for several weeks into a bay and they will put any option on the

07:36 vehicle that you've chosen.

07:38 They have various packages but anything custom can be done as well.

07:42 They've got highly skilled guys.

07:44 Really interesting thing here is that the workshop actually runs 4am until 2pm Monday

07:52 to Thursday.

07:55 On a Friday the staff can come in and finish up any bits and bobs they want, do a bit of

07:59 overtime but Saturdays and Sundays they're absolutely not allowed in because Carroll

08:04 Shelby said that weekends are for families.

08:08 I think that's a really nice thing in this day and age, particularly in the US where

08:12 people seem to work extremely long hours.

08:17 They've just so many cool classic Mustangs in here and one off very very special cars.

08:28 An amazing place.

08:32 Folks hope you've enjoyed this one and if you're into all things Ford, go and check

08:36 out this video over here where we show you something very special from the LA Auto Show

08:41 2023 that was just a few days ago at the time of recording this.

08:45 And go and check that one out for yet more from Ford at the LA Auto Show.

08:50 Thanks for watching, see you on the next one.

08:51 [Music]

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