The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

started, it was about the number of re- sources it takes to operate this little museum. Not only money but, volun- teers, memorabilia, I.T. people, librar- ians, and of course new ideas and approaches. It’s a big world out there. Just to put this in perspective, we ac- tually have first-timers come in the museum and ask if Carroll Shelby was a real person, or was he made up by the Disney Studio? SAAC: I think everybody has their own vision of what the perfect mu- seum would be. SERB: I don’t consider ours perfect by any means but it’s what we could put together with the resources we have. SAAC: We’ve seen almost all of them and yours is as nice as any of them.We just wish it was closer so we could spend more time there. Do you have any plans for the future? Aside from more of the same. SERB: We have new stuff to display all of the time. It’s not on the level of Ken Miles’ GT40, but there’s all kinds of new stuff coming. And it comes from the oddest places. I don’t think the size of the museum will change any time soon, but we will constantly update it. We rotate cars in and out all the time. SAAC: That’s one of the secrets to a museum. Having different cars is im- portant if you want people to keep coming back. If everything is the same, people go there once, they’ve seen it, and there’s no need to come back. SERB: That’s why we redid the show in the theater. [ The Cobra Experience has a state-of-the-art theater seating forty people and aside from unique Cobra-related video presentations (with surround sound and even vents in the ceiling that send out blasts of air synchronized to screen images of Cobras moving past you) they show full length films like “Ford Vs. Fer- rari,” “LeMans,” “Gumball Rally,” “Bullitt” and similar fare. ] After the “Ford Vs. Ferrari” movie was released we would get as many as 600 people on a Sunday, but Covid put an end to that. We’re slowly trying to come back. It’s picking up, and we’re changing it up. SAAC: The Cobra Experience pro- duces a nice monthly newsletter which is emailed which, believe it or not, we make it a point to read. Emily is doing an excellent job keeping it fresh and relevant and we notice that she is doing a lot with younger enthusiasts, trying to get them involved. SERB: We have to. We’re trying to get the next generation and the general public up to speed on what Shelby did. If you get someone who is half-inter- ested, they just cling on to those sto- ries. The whole dynamic with Henry Ford and his new wife: she was Ital- ian, and she bet him twenty bucks that Ford would never beat Ferrari. There are all kinds of small stories like that. SAAC: There are so many that they won’t be all found in one place. They have to find their own context. SERB: We tell the story about Henry Ford being called in front of Congress and Ralph Nader read him the riot act about Ford’s record on safety and the environment and Henry decided to pack it in at that point. They went a few more years with the Shelby Mus- tangs but that was the end of Ford’s racing days and the Total Performance program. SAAC: We don’t like to make value judgements about history because you can’t change it. What happened hap- pened. SERB: I think there were a lot of other programs running in the back- ground: the cost, the Board of Direc- tors, the liability. I don’t know how the The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 46 Emily, Drew and Janet Serb: the Cobra Experience’s prime movers.