Cool Shelbys ... on ebay.

[csx289]

I felt sick to my stomach reading the 1966 listing. All these years I thought the 1982 Shelby Registry on my bookshelf was real, and now I learn that the first one was printed in 1987!

Seriously, I don't know what buyers think sometimes. They bid big money on cars like these that will NEVER be as good as an original, complete car that is either a nice unrestored one or a high level resto. I don't care how much money you throw at a resto, at some point with cars like these, somebody will show up with a picture of how they look now and people will always shy away from a car with such rough history. The best one of the bunch is obviously the 68 GT350, and the seller is very honest in his description. I just don't know how you could afford to buy any one of these cars (esp. the "halfa car"), sink in $100k or more for a proper resto, and come out ahead. No matter how nice they are at the end, they will always have the history attached that shows owners with obvious hatred for Shelbys

If I had a buck for every time I heard "yeah, I know your car is all N.O.S parts and has won some big concours awards, BUT, mine is worth only a little less because it (insert line here: only needs detailing; has a correct motor; looks the same; only been driven 20k miles since LeRoy restored it; doesn't have NOS parts but the repops are just as good; nobody really cares about original paint; I "seen" one sell "just like mine" at auction on TV and mine is just as good; etc., etc).

Hope springs eternal, but, with most "real" parts being extinct, resto shops charging $50.00 per hour and up, minimum of 1,000 hours to do a car right, and the inevitable "damn we didn't know that was missing - that part is how much?!?" , why buy (for example) a 66 GT350 for $60-70k that needs EVERYTHING when you can buy a done one with good history for maybe twice as much?

Ok, I am off my soap box now. In no way was this meant to be a self-serving post, only thinking out loud. It is amazing how optomistic people can be sometimes!

Colin