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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 19
CAR GUY SHTUFF – Bugs in Your
Teeth, Wind in Your Hair
by Bill
Fulk. 6 ˝ x 9˝ softcover; 259 pages, 62
black & white photos. Published by
Bill Fulk. Sacramento, California;
available
from www.amazon.com
$9.99, $4.99 Kindle.
SAAC member Bill Fulk from
Sacramento, California began attend-
ing various Shelby meets in 2012 with
the idea of taking photos of the Cobras
he saw and writing a brief report of
what went on. Turns out he is a pretty
good writer, using a light, conversa-
tional style and adding enough obser-
vations and opinions to keep his
narrative moving right along. It’s
pleasantly addicting.
Fulk pretty much limited himself
to Shelby club publications: the Nor-
Cal Region’s monthly newsletter, “Dri-
ven,” and SAAC’s quarterly
Shelby
American
magazine. This make sense
for two reasons. First, the subjects he
is covering are exactly what readers of
these publications are interested in.
And second, club publications always
have trouble trying to fill their pages
with good articles and pictures con-
tributed by members. With essentially
no budget to pay for anything, trying
to keep a club publication on schedule
depends on a steady stream of articles
and pictures. Once an issue is printed
there is another one coming along
right behind it. Editors are grateful for
interesting articles and the more well
written they are, the better. For people
who enjoy writing, it’s a perfect fit:
they can always find a spot for their
work. They are only limited by their
imagination.
The book contains more than
thirty chapters which are, in essence,
reports of events he attended. The nub
of the book revolves around the
Cobra’s 50th birthday celebration. The
Cobra was introduced in 1962 and
when its 50th anniversary rolled
around, virtually every event on the
calendar had some sort of a Cobra
commemoration. They started in Las
Vegas, home of Shelby American, in
March with a “50th Anniversary
Bash.” A month later there was a cel-
ebration in Pomona, California at the
Wally Parks NHRA Museum and Fulk
was there, rubbing elbows with the
various VIPs and snapping pictures
everywhere.
Fulk next appeared up at SAAC’s
37th convention at Watkins Glen, on
the other side of the country. It had, as
part of its activities, yet another Cobra
anniversary celebration. It was here
that we caught up with Fulk and with
a wide grin on our face and our tongue
firmly planted inside our cheek, we
challenged him to cover every major
Cobra 50th Anniversary event: Auto
Week in Monterey including the Con-
cours on the Avenue in Carmel, the
vintage races at Mazda Raceway, the
Pebble Beach Concours, the show at
The Quail and a handful of auctions
sprinkled around the Monterey Penin-
sula. The NorCal Mini-Nats at Sears
Point Raceway in Sonoma, California;
the Shelby American Collection mu-
seum get-together in Boulder, Col-
orado; and the Goodwood Motorsports
Revival in England.
In all honesty, we never expected
Fulk to accept our challenge. He calls
Sacramento his home, so attending
the Mini-Nats and Monterey were no-
brainers. Boulder was more than a
hop, skip and jump away and a trip to
England? That was a major excursion.
When he filed reports for
The Shelby
American
and included photos his
stock rose exponentially.
This book goes beyond 2014 as
Fulk traces his tracks from event to
event through 2015, with an eye on
Cobras and Shelbys. Obviously not
many people can afford to go to all of
these events, so being able to read
about them is the next best thing.
Fulk’s words help bring them events
to life. We have recently learned that
Bill Fulk was named as editor of Nor-
Cal’s “Driven” magazine, so we expect
we will be seeing a lot more of his
“schtuff.” We have a feeling this might
be just the first such book. If that’s the
case, we look forward to the next one.
The 50th Anniversary of Ford’s iconic
1-2-3 finish at the 1966 LeMans 24-
Hour race will not go unnoticed by any
major event this year. The Pebble
Beach Concours will have three sepa-
rate event posters this year. Noted au-
tomotive artist Ken Eberts was
commissioned to do a poster of the
three 1966 GT40 MK II that finished
1-2-3 at LeMans in 1966. After their
appearance at LeMans, the three cars
will be shipped back to the U.S. where
they will be displayed at Pebble.
Eberts was a 21 year-old beginning de-
signer at Ford, assigned to projects
like the Econoline van, Falcon and
Galaxie. In the 1960s his heart was in
the GT40 program but he never got
near it. He subsequently founded the
Automotive Fine Arts Society. Five
decades after his time at Ford he was
asked by Edsel Ford to paint the iconic
Fords for the Pebble Beach concours.