THE 2008 SHELBY ANNUAL: UNDAMPENED BY DETROIT’S CHAOS

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Automotive model year 2009 started a couple of months ago. There are only fifty days left until New Year’s Day. Only forty-five shopping days until Christmas . . . .

So Source Interlink Media and Shelby FINALLY get around to releasing their 2008 Shelby Annual.

Like most things Shelby, it’s not cheap. ($6.99 in the U.S.A., $7.99 in Canada).

But is it a good value?

Speedzzter things so. In fact, the bang-for-the-buck is about one thousand times better than a Shelby GT Mustang (see "Best of Speedzzter" sidebar).

Edited by long-time Mustang magazine scribe Donald Farr and produced by Source Interlink’s “Performance Group” (which includes such storied titles as “Hot Rod,” “Car Craft,” “Muscle Mustang and Fast Fords,” and “5.0 Mustang and Super Fords”), the 2008 Shelby Annual provides an entertaining blend of sales pitch, insider vignettes, "Shelbyized" history, and a few optimistic “Carrollisms.”

The gist of the book is to tie in the current Shelby line-up with their historic namesakes. Certainly, Shelby’s current Las Vegas lines take center stage. GT500KR, V6 Terlingua Mustang, and Shelby’s continuation Cobra roadsters are prominently featured. A fun dose of Shelby’s racing history – both before and during Ford’s legendary “Total Performance” campaign of the 1960s is included.

To those familiar with Shelby history, the dusty vignettes on Shelby’s driving career, the original Terlinqua Racing Team, and Shelby’s rescue of the Ford’s Le Mans effort are nothing new. But these stories are collected in a handy form and beautifully illustrated with large, well-reproduced period photography.

Such nostalgia may seem a “Galaxie” away from the current Detroit meltdown and General Motors Death Watch, but they’re just the thing to relive or imagine a happier, more muscular time. A time when Ford believed it could conquer any hill anywhere in the World that wasn’t already marked “Property of GM” (the 1958 Edsel debacle had shattered FoMoCo notions that it could fully match and overtake GM). A time when a hard-driving chicken farmer from east Texas believed that American V8-powered sports cars could defeat the traditional European powers on the World stage.

The 2008 Shelby Annual recaps some of the “Shelby” event milestones of 2008. Shelby’s 85th birthday bash, the first Team Shelby Nationals, and the Terlinqua Reunion all receive some coverage.

The 2008 Shelby Annual also details the transformation of an “ordinary” GT500 into a GT500KR. One quick glance at the inefficiency of the process and it’s easy to see why the GT500KR commands such a massive premium for what amounts to some dress-up parts, a suspension recalibration and a paltry boost of forty horsepower. However, Shelby snobs will surely be quick to point out that all of the Las Vegas machinations transform the KR into a “real Shelby.”

Even the stepchild FWD Shelby Dodges get four pages in the 2008 Annual. Mostly based on archival photos, the story on the Shelby GLHS includes a tiny present-day snapshot of Carroll “hisself” leaning against Dodge Omni Shelby GLHS No. 1 (which he reportedly still owns).

Carroll recalls his time in the FWD wilderness in his introductory editorial, entitled “Drive and Have Fun” Although Carroll opens with a history-tinged defense of the V8, he segues into recalling how “we” overcame the automotive dark ages of the 1970s with the “great fun” Dodge GLH.

Carroll then says:

“I’d love to do that again. Can you imagine turning the Ford Focus into a real pocket rocket by pumping up the horsepower and sharpening the handling? That would make a great compliment to a Shelby
Mustang.”

Savvy readers know that this has already happened elsewhere (i.e. Focus RS, Focus ST170/SVT Focus).

Undoubtedly Carroll Shelby knows this too.

Only Ford’s short-sighted marketing plans, overprotectiveness of the Mustang franchise, and faithlessness in its ability to compete in the sport compact niche have kept these World-class “pocket rockets” out of the American marketplace.

The message between the lines is that the Shelby name will probably be used to “build value” for the breathtaking price that domesticating the next generation WRC-bred Ford Focus RS will command. And considering that Shelby has already inked a deal with Ford that extends through his 91st year, it is possible that Shelby Automobiles will further “Shelbyize” Shelby Foci at the Las Vegas plant.

Carroll’s allusions to future “pocket rockets” come close to portending a “soft landing” strategy for the end of the Second Supercar Era. Certainly, the 2008 Shelby Annual provides no hint of how Shelby Automobiles or Ford will continue to produce 600-700+ horsepower V8 supercars as Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards tighten and the power-thirsty, greeniac OBAMAcrats tighten the noose around all carbon-emitting mechanical things.

Shelby says they’re looking at alternative fuels and “experimenting with electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles.” No specifics given, though. He concludes:

“So whether we use turbos or superchargers, smarter computers, or lighter materials, we’ll still build cars for real enthusiasts. And we’re going to make them affordable [Stop snickering].”

Carroll claims the mantle of maverick, suggesting that he’s been doing the “unexpected my whole life” and that’s enough of a reason to have faith in the Brave New World of the future car. Of course this defiant, revisionist view ignores Shelby’s “unexpected” abandonment of the high performance automobile marketplace from the late 1960s until Lee Iacocca brought him back to play with soporiferous FWD Dodges in the early Reagan years.

Maybe this time will be different.

Clearly the pairing of Ford and Shelby is about as close to a license to print money as exists in Motown these dismal days. But Shelby’s companies are small and mostly geared toward licensing. The infamous Series 1 debacle provides ample evidence of what happens when Shelby Automobiles reaches out of its bolt-on tuner/kit-car-Cobra depth. It simply cannot do the heavy lifting necessary to cook up turbocharged electric hybrid Mustangs or hydrogen-powered electric “skateboards” or whatever it is that “performance cars” will become in the Carbon-taxed future. Ford must shoulder that load for anything wild and wonderful to happen. Whether FoMoCo will is murky at best.

Still, the 2008 Shelby Annual is a good book to forget all of that. It is a good book to celebrate the less-than-affordable Shelby cars of the present. And to reminisce (or learn for the first time) about the fading triumphs of a past generation of World-class high performance motoring.