[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by Al G

Just once I'd like to see someone from SAI or Kirkham respond to this kind of comment and tell us exactly who does what with the aluminum Shelby cars. I don't believe it is as simple as some people claim.

That depends entirely upon the roller. Who did what to whom changed dramatically over the years.

The roller that is pictured currently on Shelby's website for the 50th Anniversary 427

Shelby American Inc. - 50th Anniversary 427 Cobra

was built almost entirely by Kirkham. We even made the Shelby badged hub caps, steering emblem, brake pedal arm, and clutch pedal arm. Other than the logo, all parts are essentially the same as what we make on our current rollers.

We have been working a long, long time with Shelby as of late. Joe Conway, the CEO of Shelby, has been great to work with and is deeply committed to improving Shelby quality and delivery. I wish Joe had taken over long ago. Joe has Keith Belair, CFO, running day to day right now. Keith is also deeply committed to improving quality and delivery. Bill DenBeste, Shelby dealer, is deeply committed to improving quality and delivery. Whenever we have offered them a choice of parts they always go for top-shelf items.

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

This has been discussed in the past before several times.

Shelby buys the frame and aluminum body from Kirkham and then builds their car up from there in Vegas. Shelby uses original CSX3000 style suspension as opposed to the Kirkham billet suspension. Kirkham has said that Shelby also buys some miscellaneous parts from them too, but Shelby has their own set of suppliers for their aluminum cars. Shelby does not buy a Kirkham roller.

However with the last 50th anniversary Shelby cars, there was a slight difference in that the Kirkham frames and bodies were shipped from Poland to South Africa (instead of Vegas), so that all of the 50th anniversary cars were completed consistently in South Africa.

I am bit too lazy to go searching through old threads. There is a thread where I had posted pictures of aluminum cars at Vegas, both CSX1000 (sourced from AC) and CSX4000/CSX7000 cars (sourced from Kirkham) which are starting off as body and frame. There is another thread were David Kirkham mentions that for frames supplied to Shelby, they put the motor mounts in a slightly different location from an original car, as opposed to Kirkham which puts the motor mounts in the correct location. This information is also found in the SAAC registry. As for the last 50th anniversary body/frames being shipped from Poland to South Africa, that is mentioned in another thread and I think someone posted a picture related to that (I am not sure, but the picture might have been from computerworks (ron)).

We have not sent an aluminum frame and body to South Africa for many years. That said, Jimmy Price has always been very nice to deal with.

Currently, Shelby has bought several rollers from us. The latest Shelby's from us all have our suspension (and just about everything else). The above 427 50th has our latest billet suspension.

All motor mounts in our cars have always been in the same place. We do not make different frames for Shelby (or anyone else)--unless it is a very specific, custom chassis. We have had customers request V-12 set ups and all sorts of things over the years.

Originally Posted by Phill Pollard

On the Shelby American Facebook page where they announce the 50th Cobras someone using the name Chris Kirkham made a comment something to the effect of "Hey, I made (or built) that car!" I assumed that Chris is from the company known as Kirkham.

Phill

Chris is one of my twin sons (who both work here). They both did indeed work on that roller. I am extremely proud of both of them. They are working on becoming programmers. They jumped straight into our latest project of programming our new 8 axis robot with a laser. It is state-of-the-art.

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

Not. They are based on different original cars and no two of the originals were the same. Kirkham and Shelby parts are not interchangeable. Just like Shelby and spf fiberglass cars and not from the same roots. Manufactured in the same factory yes but not the same lines spitting parts out at the end.

Hmmm...this is tricky to answer. Many Kirkham and Shelby parts (mostly suspension) of the past SHOULD be interchangeable in theory. In practice they have sometimes fallen short. In the past Shelby used George Petrus parts (George was a very nice man and unfortunately, he is now in the big race track in the sky). George was very liberal in his view of originality (among other things) and his original parts were/are a difficult interchange with original parts.

Originally Posted by bret a ewing

Tony,

Kirkham builds the original style suspension. It is an option.

Best, Bret.

Yes, we still do for those customers who want them. In the past, those customers have almost exclusively been Shelby. But, as I said above, Joe Conway of Shelby is deeply committed to using as high a quality of parts as he can find and they made the switch to the Kirkham billet suspension with us a bit ago.

Happy to answer questions,

David