[Historybuff]

I see this changeover as a logical step and the best way I can explain why is to compare the marketing of the SHELBY brand to two clothing stores I visited (but whose clothes are aimed at a demographic far below my age). One is called "Hollister." I am an ad copywriter and am interested in how brands are promoted. This sometimes leads me to stores just to see how they are presenting themselves. I spent half an hour in the Hollister store but couldn't figure out what the store had to do with that little hick town up North in California other than back around 1950 there was supposedly a "riot" there when some Hells Angeles tore up the town. So the name "Hollister" for me conjures up images of Marlon Brando tearing through town on a Harley (actualy I think he rode a Matchless in the movie The Wild Ones)

Nevertheless someone spent millions to develop that brand name

Then there's Von Dutch. As I said, he was a financial bust all his life, doing a pin stripe job on a car for a case of beer, but now that he's dead even his toolbox sells for half a million. He is a legend in the hot rod world and some clothing manufacturer picked up his name and is making money selling clothes.

Now to the Shelby image. The new marketers figured , hey, we got a name here that is already on a car, and we can build the brand on a new customer base (starting with the '05 Shelbys) . They no doubt contacted the present club and asked "When's the next magazine coming out?"
"I dunno" or somesuch must have been the answer. You can't build a brand name and spend money on something run so casually.
So the new marketers said: "we'll make our own magazine."
The new markets probably then looked at the SAAC website. More bad news. If you go to their site and click on each of SAAC regional sites, how many of them are inactive but still listed like "ghost divisions" in an army (these are called "dead links" which you click on a URL and there is no response) ? I looked at the SAAC site today and they still are listing Unique Performance, a shop which Shelby cut loose a few weeks ago when they failed to deliver cars. So the SAAC website is obviouly slow to adapt to day-to-day events, of which there is a lot of in the Shelby world. There is practically a new announcement per week.
So even though I liked the old SAAC magazine, I can see why the modern day marketers of the Shelby brand name needed an organization which can
move briskly, and adjust to changing circumstances quickly. The car world is like that--you don't move fast, you got a lot of cars rusting away on unpaved lots (ask Chrysler)
I don't even think the brand name Shelby has realized near its full marketing potential. I can see SHELBY clothing stores (makes more sense than Von Dutch or Hollister to me, and you can park a real Shelby in each one) and even SHELBY burger joints (which could start out as a corner of some of the stores owned by Shelby's daughter if she still owns part of Chilis). And of course there's movie of his life (is Tom Cruise too short to play ol' Shel?)
So nothing against the old club but they just weren't a good fit with the modern brand marketing where you do things like e-mail news flashes to club members' ipods and such....