After walking out of the Shelby Heritage Center just south of the Strip on Wednesday, Wade Bentley reflected on why it took so long for him to visit the sports car museum.
“I’ve followed Shelby all my life, and I’ve been to Vegas many times, but I just hadn’t been here before today,” Bentley said. “It was very informative. You could see into the back where they were modifying the cars, which was pretty cool.”
Like many of the thousands who visit the Shelby American facility in Las Vegas each year, Bentley is a car person. In fact, he runs a Ford dealership in Cullman, Alabama, roughly an hour from Birmingham.
The Shelby is a special performance brand for Ford’s Mustang line of vehicles, a venture launched by entrepreneur and auto designer Carroll Shelby in California in 1962.
The company—which has a large warehouse and shop operation in the same building as the Heritage Center—also creates a line of Shelby trucks, which are put together in Indiana.
Today, 60 years since the first Shelby Cobra CSX2000 was displayed by Ford at the 1962 New York Auto Show, the brand is still synonymous with quality, craftsmanship, style and American racing history.
The Shelby American operation moved to its off-Strip location—sandwiched between I-15 and Town Square—in 2013. Before that, the company was stationed near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for about 15 years.
Much of what happens at the shop facility revolves around the enhancement of V-8 supercharged Mustangs into Shelby Super Snake Mustangs. The snake moniker comes from the revered Shelby cobra logo, which is recognized by gearheads the world over.
“A significant amount of work goes into it,” said Gary Patterson, president of Shelby American. “We’ll redesign the entire front fascia, fenders, hoods, wheels, tires, brakes, suspension … the content list is huge. It’s a lot more than just stickers. We change these cars a lot.”
Shelby American is in the midst of a run that will produce 30 “Code Red” Mustang GT500s. Those have twin turbo 1,300 horsepower engines. They’re so specialized and powerful, in fact, that they aren’t even highway legal.
Everything else produced out of the Las Vegas facility, however, is legal to drive anywhere in the United States.
Shelby vehicles can be so coveted by sports car enthusiasts and collectors—and thereby so copied—that an official vehicle registry exists to authenticate each vehicle.
Patterson said interest in and visitation to the Heritage Center increased after the release of 2019 film Ford v Ferrari, a loose interpretation of Carroll Shelby’s quest to build the Ford GT40 in hopes of capturing glory at the 1966 “24 Hours of Le Mans” auto race in France.
The movie, which starred actors Matt Damon and Christian Bale, grossed more than $200 million worldwide.
It wasn’t long after, however, that the COVID-19 pandemic began, drastically limiting visitation to Las Vegas for a time.
“If you’re into Shelby vehicles and Shelby products, coming to Las Vegas is kind of like being Catholic and going to Rome to see the pope,” Patterson said. “Since we moved here from our location near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway eight years ago, it’s worked out really well. We’re close to the airport and close to the Strip, which both work to our advantage.”
Inside the Heritage Center, onlookers can look at classic cars, read up on Carroll Shelby’s life and the history of his company and purchase anything from a Shelby T-shirt to a Shelby refrigerator magnet.
For a fee, visitors can partake in a guided tour that leads them onto the shop floor.
“Shelby is all about having fun, and that’s what Vegas is about, too,” Patterson said. “We continue Carroll Shelby’s passion for innovation and trying new things here. Like Shelby over the years, Vegas is a place that keeps reinventing itself, so that’s pretty cool.”
For Bentley, it didn’t take any time at all to collect his thoughts on why the Shelby brand remains so popular after six decades.
“Performance and longevity,” Bentley said. “It’s unreal. Nothing comes close. Carroll Shelby was a true winner, and the company is a true winner.”
Click HERE to subscribe for free to Vegas Inc’s BizClick newsletter. Stay up to date with the latest business news in Las Vegas sent directly to your inbox each Monday.