I had a friend who owned several Cobra Jet Mustangs over the years. One afternoon, we got into an argument about whether the car was still a Ford Mustang (albeit modified) or a Shelby Cobra. I contended that the car was still a Ford Mustang. He showed me the registration, and the words "Ford" and "Mustang" were not anywhere on it. The make was "Shelby" and the model was "Cobra". I was still unconvinced, and he challenged me to find the words "Ford" or "Mustang" anywhere on the car. We went outside, and he opened the doors, hood and trunk, and said go ahead and prove him wrong. I looked everywhere. Even the VIN badge in the engine bay showed the car as being a Shelby. The only thing close to identifying Ford as the manufacturer was the spark plug wires were FoMoCo. At that point, I conceded that Ford provided a basic platform of a car that Carroll Shelby transformed into his own brand of car!

It wasn't too long ago that Shelby moved his operation to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I hadn't heard he had made that move, but it became quite obvious when I showed up at LVMS to work an event at The Strip and I saw hundreds of brand new Mustangs in a parking lot at the facility just waiting to be transformed into Cobras!

When Shelby died, muscle car enthusiasts everywhere lost a great pioneer and innovator!