"Let Bobby get a hamburger. He just flew in. Then we'll get Eleanor," Steve Sanderson told us from his cell phone at Shelby's place on the grounds of Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
We phoned while driving north on I-15 to the track, where Carroll Shelby builds Cobras, Series 1 Shelbys, the Eleanor GT500E continuation Shelbys, and who knows what else (we hear a continuation '65 R-model is next). Bobby Mikus had Eleanor fueled and ready to cruise.
The occasion was SAAC 7 Does Vegas, starring Rick Kopec and the Shelby American Automobile Club. These people aren't much for showing and shining. There would be a rally to the Valley of Fire on Sunday morning. Saturday would be track day, as in road racing. Sunday afternoon everybody would meet at Shelby's facility for a barbecue. When Carroll himself is wandering the grounds, excitement is afoot.
"Meet us at the Iron Skillet behind Shelby's place," Steve said.
Everywhere Eleanor is parked, people gravitate. It was mid afternoon, and the restaurant was almost empty. Before I could get out of my car and walk 20 yards, four men peered in the windows to inspect the GT500E.
"Eleanor," one smiling man assured us in a heavy Spanish accent. There is a certain trepidation approaching a car in a parking lot, yet people take the risk.
Our aim was to drive Eleanor down the Las Vegas strip and gauge public reaction. First, Bobby and I would drop by the Boardwalk Hotel on the strip, where SAAC entrants were registering.
Kopec had warned us of a backlash with Eleanor; some Shelby purists didn't have the big picture, but Kopec knew the history well:"Shelby reinvents himself every ten years," he said. "In the '50s, he was a driver; in the '60s, he built the Cobras and Shelby Mustangs; in the '70s, he was a business man; in the '80s, he was with Chrysler. In the '90s, he built his Series 1 Shelby and CSX 4000 series Cobra."
The 21st century is here and with it a new Shelby to appeal to a new generation. Kopec assured us we could never predict what was going to happen. On Sunday afternoon, I got the idea he was right, when the tour guide at Shelby American spoke about building a hydrogen-powered car.
The SAAC people were all over Eleanor when we pulled in the parking lot of the boardwalk. Or, more precisely, they were all under it.
"Take a look at that rear suspension. Exotic," said one.
Others inspected details under the hood. Owen Kelly and his friend Gary Michael flew in from Missoula, Montana. Kelly owns a '67 GT500. He was ecstatic to walk around and inspect Eleanor in person.
Obviously, Eleanor wasn't a threat to him. In fact, he said after the movie came out, his car got a lot more attention and had escalated in value. The backlash Kopec warned us about wasn't surfacing, although we knew it existed.
Kopec told us some members had gone so far as to ask, "Can you make him stop?"
They were referring to Carroll and the cars he builds. Some purists even say SAAC is "in bed" with Shelby American, meaning they exist to promote his cars. Actually, SAAC registers them in the Shelby American World Registry so that many years from now someone doesn't show up at a convention and claim to have an original Cobra or Shelby when it was converted much later. Thus, all cars are numbered, registered, and documented.
On the Las Vegas strip, Eleanor faced rugged competition for looks. When we turned onto Las Vegas Boulevard, in front of us was a red Viper with white stripes. The driver, a young man with his hat on backwards, revved the V-10 at the light. We only wished we could have been side by side on a strip for racing and not just for casinos-we'd have shown him a real snake!
To our surprise, the attraction to Eleanor on the strip proved much more than cosmetic. You light the V-8 and the air crackles. Side exiting exhausts are a trait of big-block Cobras and Trans Am race cars. Two men came running from the escalators from the walkway surrounding the Bellagio Hotel.