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The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 2
Automobile auction houses receive
fees from both buyers and sellers, nor-
mally around eight percent from a
buyer. The seller of a premiere vehicle
like this can negotiate the seller’s fee
but whatever it is, it is likely the sale
will represent a substantial payday of
more than $2M for the auction com-
pany. This is why, aside from the pub-
licity generated by handling the sale,
the choice of RM over BJ is such a
stinging rebuke. You can almost hear
Craig Jackson saying, “
After all we’ve
done for Carroll Shelby and his Foun-
dation...
” But as they say, at this level,
it’s not wiffle ball.
Sometime before the Cobra 50th
Anniversary celebration at Shelby
American, CSX2000 was repainted–
against Shelby’s desire not to have
anything touched or replaced on the
car. The upholstery on the original
seats was coming apart and many
other features were showing their age
but Shelby thought of this as con-
tributing to the car’s patina. When he
found out it had been repainted he
was irate, but at that point he was too
ill to do much about it. There was a
change of management staff at SAI
after that but there is no proof this in-
cident was the cause. Most articles
about the car refer to it as being “un-
restored” but that is not really an ac-
curate description.
Back in 1975, Robert Petersen
opened a museum in Hollywood in
what had been a two-story Cadillac
dealership on Hollywood Boulevard.
In it he displayed about 60 cars he and
his wife had collected, most of which
were either previously owned by
Shelby’s 427 Cobra, CSX3178. This car
was originally shipped to Horn-
Williams Ford in Dallas, Texas in
March of 1966. Shelby is the only
known owner. Originally black, the car
was restored by Mike McCluskey in
1972 and painted Guardsman Blue
with a single gold stripe. McCluskey
also installed an automatic transmis-
sion. In 2002 the car was painted red.
Viewing everything that revolves
around Shelby as a never-ending soap
opera, nothing should surprise any-
one. The auction press releases were
barely out when another news release
began making the rounds. A law suit
by Cleo Shelby against the Foundation
has been working its way through the
courts and a hearing on a restraining
order/injunction was announced for
the very same day as the auction. Co-
incidence? Who’s to say.
Ever since Shelby’s death, Cleo
Shelby has been accusing the Carroll
Shelby Childrens Foundation, of
which she was one of the three board
of directors (Shelby and lawyer Neil
Cummings were the other two) of fi-
nancial mismanagement. She alleges
that the Foundation is spending large
amounts of money from its treasury
while dispensing a tiny fraction for
charitable causes – the very reason for
the Foundation’s existence.
Once this law suit was instituted,
the Foundation’s tax records started to
be floated around [http://990s.founda-
tioncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/954/
954342625/954342625_20142_990.pdf
?_ga=1.32373886.1716893947.146764
5125] As soon as they were made pub-
lic, donations diminished. Most of the
income came from auctioning special
models donated by Ford at Barrett-
Jackson events. It will all come out
eventually.We’re guessing none of this
will effect the auction. Stay tuned!
celebrities or had been used in movies
or television shows. Shelby and Pe-
tersen were long-time friends and he
loaned Petersen CSX2000. Also in the
museum was Mike Shoen’s Daytona
Coupe, CSX2602.
For the past few years the car was
on display in Las Vegas at the Shelby
American Heritage Collection which is
a part of the company’s headquarters
and manufacturing facility. A more
formal Shelby Museum was planned
for Shelby’s Gardena, California prop-
erty but plans have kept changing due
to internal disputes. Prior to the deci-
sion to liquidate the car, the plan was
to move it back and forth between Las
Vegas and Gardena. It has been on
display for almost twenty-five years,
beginning at the Imperial Palace’s
auto museum back in 1992 when
Shelby began operating in Las Vegas.
When his facility out near Las Vegas
Motor Speedway was completed, the
car was parked there. It was occasion-
ally moved to Gardena where it was
displayed or used in promotions.
RM Sotheby’s did an admirable
job of rolling out the publicity for the
sale, starting near the end of June.
Also going across the block will be
CSX2000 at Petersen’s Motorama Cars of the Stars museum in Hollywood in 1976.
CSX3178