The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 7 you choose for your dream garage? ” The cars they presented were: a 1953 Chevy Bel Air 210 Series; a 1953 Ford Customline Club Coupe; a 1953 Plymouth Cambridge 2-door sedan; a 1953 Kaiser Dragon four-door. Could they have found four more unin- spiring, characterless and bland motor vehicles? Not likely. There might be a few slack-jawed mouth-breathers among their readers who responded to Hem- mings by choosing one of these torpid slugs over the other three snoozers, but we suspect that most dozed off long before that. So exactly what is happening here? We think there are two things at play. One is that the in- telligence level of today’s average automotive enthusiast (under the age of 50) has been dumbed-down by the current decline in basic communication skills, thanks to pitiful public school education, re- duced MTV attention spans and the 280-character tweet limit which forces users into abbreviat- ing terms and truncating ideas. The late William Safire, Pulitzer Prize winning author and linguis- tics expert, admonished, “ Stop worrying about the ‘dumbing down’ of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ of the page by little minds confined to little words .” He had it right. Standards have dwin- dled to the point where this kind of twaddle is blindly accepted by the mindless slackers who read it. This article’s shelf life is shorter than the lifespan of a luna moth. It will be immediately forgotten as soon as the next thing is posted. The second is there was a time, not so long ago, when an article like this would never have gotten anywhere close to being printed. Someone in authority – an editor or supervisor – would have re- jected it out of hand, and probably given its young author an ear- burning red-assing they would re- member for a long time. But they Gulf Livery Returns Only For One Race Top Seller At Mecum Indy Road Art The McLaren Formula 1 team has acquired the sponsorship of the Gulf Oil Company. They will be using one of the most famous liveries in racing for only one race – Monaco in May of 2021. McLaren currently is tenth in the Formula 1 constructor’s standings. The team has been finishing in mid- field since 2019 and has not won a race since 2012. Their current partnership with Gulf is new, but the company previously sponsored McLaren racing cars in both the late 1960s (Can-Am) and mid-1990s (F1 GTR). The livery, itself, is most remembered on the 1968 and 1969 GT40 (#1076) which won Le- Mans two years in a row. The familiar powder blue/marigold paint scheme was also used on the Porsche 917 hero car in the 1971 Steve McQueen movie, “LeMans.” The Gulf colors have been kept alive by the 2005-2006 Ford GT Gulf Livery option. On the secondary market the “Gulf Livery option” has been proven to add about 25% to the value of a car with this paint. The option has also ex- tended to the 2017 GTs but fewer of them received the Gulf treatment. McLaren reports that the Monaco Grand Prix is the only race the new livery will be used. But that could change if the branding proves to be popular. We will just have to wait and see. Mecum announced the top seller at its Road Art auction in Indianapolis back in May. “Miles Ahead,” a bronze sculpture by artist J. Paul Nesse, brought $41,300. It depicts Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles and a 427 comp Cobra. Nesse’s sculpture, weighing 100 lbs. and measuring over two feet long, was completed in 1987 and unveiled at SAAC-12 in Charlotte. Only 35 pieces were cast and all were immediately sold at a price of $6,000 for the bronze patina and $6.850 finished in natural- toned finish.