Hello all!
I'm fairly new here and just wanted to pass along my experience with SAI just a few days ago.
My wife and I went to Las Vegas for a little vacation and I told her we had to go see the Speedway (place is sweet by the way!) and also happened to be reading a DuPont Registry on the plane ride out. I happened across a Shelby ad and it listed an address near the track. Sweet! I can kill two birds with one rent-a-wreck.
Anyway, we drove out and drove up to the doors of the buliding that had great big letters S H E L B Y on the side. Not a soul around. My heart dropped. Then I noticed the sign on the door that said they had moved across the street. Duh, I should have noticed the big white semi truck with Shelby's mug on the side. SO we go across the parking lot and the whole time my wife is saying, "They are not about to talk to you about cars. They don't even look open." And as usual I ignore this and go to the door and am greeted with a very nice girl at the front desk. I tell her that we are looking into building a Cobra and saw the ad etc etc....
She says well, we just moved here so none of the stuff we had across the street is even set up yet. No museum, merchandise, yada yada yada. But, she says, let me see if Bob is available. So off she goes and comes back and my wife says to her "Do you get car geeks like him in here all the time bugging you?" She says "Yes, and it's geeks like your husband that pay my salary." Score one for me!!! About that time Bob comes out and we do the intros and he invites us back to his office. Lemme tell ya, these guys are in fact working out of the boxes that they packed all their stuff into. Moving sucks. We all know this. Anyway, Bob sat and talked with us at length about the glass cars, the carbon cars, and the alum cars. Then I stumped him. I asked to see one. He said he had to go look and see if they still had a 4000 series in the back because it was supposed to be getting loaded into the aforementioned semi. He disappeared for about 5 min then came back, handed us safety glasses, and off we went.
Heaven. Thats all I can say. Aluminum blocks. Complete motors. Some red mustang under a car cover. A Series One. And a light blue/black stripe CSX4000 sitting there. Bob explained all the little things that were going to be fixed, like the nonrolled fender lip, footbox, etc. He let me crawl and poke and peek to my hearts desire. He did show us around the production line a bit, (No pics allowed) and then we went back to his office. We talked a little more and then we said goodbye. I have to give props to Bob for taking time to show me the car and the facility. A positive experience to say the least. Only thing that would have just topped it is if ol Carroll would have popped his head out from behind a door.
So, the wife gave me the ok to go ahead and buy one. Funny, I don't remember seeing bite marks on her ankle before we went in the building......
t.