I met Amy Boylan the president of Shelby Automobiles at SEMA this year as well as Gary Patterson the Vice President of Operations for Shelby. We became instant friends because of our love for cars big and small. Amy was the head of Hotwheels before coming to work for Shelby. I still have all of my Hotwheels from 1968 along with the race tracks and superchargers. Gary was very interested in my GT/CS and allowed me to educate him about our special cars. I might mention that Gary still has his original car that he bought at age 15, a 69 Mach 1 with the 428 CJ. He didn't have enough money and went to his dad for a loan. His dad said that he would lend it to him, but he couldn't drive the car until he paid him back. Gary worked his butt off and paid his dad in full by the time he turned 16. I could tell from our conversation that he was still very proud of that event and even more proud of the car.
Amy mentioned that they were planning an event for Mr. Shelby and that I should stay in touch which I did. I also joined Team Shelby which Amy is involved in and helped organize. I have always said it's not what you know, but who you know. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time and I'm not affraid to talk to anyone especially about our special cars.
From the birthday celebration weekend I received an invitation from Robert Parker who is the Car Marketing Manager for Ford nationwide to come to Detroit and tour the various Ford facilities and museums. How can I turn that down? If you watched Barrett-Jackson when they auctioned off the new glass top GT500 KR, Robert was the gentleman that introduced the car.
Below are some more photos of the weekend.
Cheers!
Ron
