SAAC Forum

For sure, I'm amped up about the joint Mustang Club of America and Shelby American Automobile Club anniversary celebrations at Road Atlanta on August 28-30. Both national (and worldwide) clubs have prominently co-existed for five decades-SAAC for 51 years and MCA for 50-but never have the two organizations merged, their collective memberships into a single event.
My history with both organizations goes back 50 years, to 1976, when I was a lonely Boss 302 owner in a small town in South Carolina. I knew a few "car guys" around the area but they were mostly drag racers or Mopar fanatics. My main connection to the outside world was the occasional Mustang or Ford article in car magazines during a time when Hot Rod focused on custom vans, Car Craft favored Chevrolets, and Motor Trend covered economy cars. Then fellow Boss 302 owner Danny Rockett invited me to a Fall Shelby meet in Pine Mountain, North Carolina, hosted by Bill and Kathy Harris with the Carolina Region of the Shelby American Automobile Club. When I drove into the parking lot filled with Shelbys, Cobras, and Boss Mustangs, I knew I had found a home.
Around the same time, I spotted a small ad in Hemmings Motor News for an Atlanta-based club called the Mustang Club of America. I quickly joined and became member #775.
Both clubs had magazines-MCA's monthly Mustang Times and SAAC's bi-monthly The Marque-and I suddenly found myself connected to other Mustang owners throughout the country. In Mustang Times, I saw the names Jim Osborn, Bill Dillard, Gary Goddard, and Larry Dobbs. In The Marque, I read about Austin Craig, Rick Kopec, Jim Wicks, J Bittle, and Tony Branda. I never imagined that the time would soon come when I could call all of them my friends. Of course, by 1980, Dobbs was my boss at Mustang Monthly.
I'll admit that, during the late 1970s, I was more involved with SAAC than MCA Although I attended nearby MCA shows, including the 1978 Grand National in Atlanta where my Boss 302 garnered the Best Paint award, I was more active in SAAC, which had accepted the 1969-70 Boss 302s because Shelby had campaigned Boss 302s in the 1969 Trans-Am series. With encouragement from then-SAAC President Austin Craig, I signed on as SAAC's South Carolina Regional Director, attended SAAC-4 in Pennsylvania and SAAC-5 in Dearborn, and contributed photos and stories to The Marque, which kick-started my career.
Ironically, when I came aboard as Mustang Times editor in 2014, Austin Craig was on the MCA Board of Directors serving as publisher. In another coincidence, MCA regional group Mustang Club of Northeast Georgia can trace the roots of its Fall Regional Mustang, Shelby, and Ford Meet-now held annually in Hiawassee, Georgia-back to the Shelby meet that I attended in Pine Mountain (and later Cherokee), North Carolina, in the mid-1970s.
MCA and SAAC have followed similar paths over the past 50 years, with MCA focusing on Mustangs (initially 1965-73 only until expanding to all Mustangs in 1986) and SAAC devoted to the cars from Shelby American. Both clubs host track events and have established respected concours judging rules. MCA has presented major Mustang anniversary events and worked with Ford to create 2011-14 MCA Edition Mustangs. SAAC's annual national convention is a mecca for Shelby owners, and, in 1992, the club developed its own SAAC Mark 1 high-performance Fox-body Mustang. SAAC has also published a trio of massive (as in over 1,000 pages) Shelby Registries that document the history of all 1965-67 Shelbys, 1968-70 Shelbys, and Cobras/GT-40s.
As you can see, over the past 50 years, MCA and SAAC have contributed tremendously to the fun and camaraderie that we enjoy as Mustang owners and Ford enthusiasts. The combination MCA 50th Anniversary and SAAC-51 is going to be a blast.