LEGACY OF A LEGEND

Join Octane for a guided tour of the Shelby American Collection, a museum dedicated to the rich heritage of the cars of Carroll Shelby

- Harry Hurst

Single-marque collections hold a special place in the world of automotive museums. They celebrate not just the machines from one company, but the people who made them possible. These museums remind us that some cars are more than mere means of transportation: they are expressions of human creativity and ambition, best understood through the singular lens of a marque or its creator.

While the Shelby American Collection, located in Boulder, Colorado, houses examples from several car companies - AC, Shelby, Ford, Sunbeam, De Tomaso - they all have this in common: Carroll Shelby and his goal to beat Ferrari. Shelby achieved his success not because he was an engineering genius like Dr Ferdinand Porsche or Ettore Bugatti. He was more like his arch nemesis, Enzo Ferrari: a charismatic leader who had the intelligence to surround himself with exceptionally talented people to help him achieve his dreams.

Executive Director Steve Volk founded the Collection in 1996 along with a group of fellow Shelby enthusiasts, and with the mission to celebrate the rich heritage of the Cobra, Shelby Mustang, and Ford GT40 cars that changed the face of auto racing in the 1960s.

Beginning with a core group of cars he and some close friends had acquired, Volk has been able to expand the selection through loans and donations from several noted Shelby collectors. "The Shelby American Collection is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, the finest collection of anything that has to do with Shelby Cobras, Ford GTs, and Mustang GTs,' says former Shelby crew member and driver Allen Grant.

Volk got interested in Shelby race cars when he was in high school. A friend there had a 427 Cobra, a GT40 (chassis 1068), and a Mangusta.