Book review Brian Leban's book Shelby and AC Cobra

[Historybuff]

https://mycarquest.com/2021/10/book-...-ac-cobra.html

[Trevor Legate]

I naturally assume you are aware that Brian Laban (not Leban) passed away four years ago. Therefore this is hardly an 'updated' version of his book.

[Historybuff]

Hi Trevor:
I didn't know he died. But I said in the review I first became aware of the book in 2015. It is being sold new--I was sent the book in October 2021 by the publisher. i am hoping the publisher will update it but as you are from Britain yourself do you have opinions on if it's best for a Brit to write Cobra history or an America? It seems like he was lacking some info about the US effort and we Yanks don't know what happened at AC.

[Trevor Legate]

I believe Brian was commissioned to write the book many years ago. He wrote about numerous cars even though he had little personal experience of any of them (as with many writers!) so he put together a book using contemporary references. As you do. Thus a lot of the copy focuses on the UK side of the (long long) saga. As an Anglo-American product, the Cobra story varies depending on which side of the Atlantic you live and whether you prefer the Shelby version of events, claiming 'his' car/design as 100% American ("There's no such thing as an AC Cobra" etc). The truth is out there, probably in the middle of the Atlantic....
After all this time, does it really matter any more?

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by Trevor Legate

I believe Brian was commissioned to write the book many years ago. He wrote about numerous cars even though he had little personal experience of any of them (as with many writers!) so he put together a book using contemporary references. As you do. Thus a lot of the copy focuses on the UK side of the (long long) saga. As an Anglo-American product, the Cobra story varies depending on which side of the Atlantic you live and whether you prefer the Shelby version of events, claiming 'his' car/design as 100% American ("There's no such thing as an AC Cobra" etc). The truth is out there, probably in the middle of the Atlantic....
After all this time, does it really matter any more?

The exact location in the Altantic to find the truth can probably be determined by finding the center of the shape defined by the points Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Bridgeport Connecticut, Thames Ditton, Germany and Malta.

[Trevor Legate]

True, but methinks Malta is best forgotten....that had nothing to do with building cars...

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by Trevor Legate

True, but methinks Malta is best forgotten....that had nothing to do with building cars...

Yes, but wasn't Malta a bit more "real" than Bridgeport Connecticut and Chicago were?

[Historybuff]

I beg to differ on little personal experience. It is a matter of record
that as a newly minted staff member of Motor Trend in the summer of 1965 my first assignment was to go with Mike Lamm the editor to a company called Shelby American at the LAX airport and view the new 427 Cobra. Plus I interviewed Shelby at least twice for my first book Shelby's Wildlife and he graciously wrote the forward. I was taken for a test drive in an S/C by one of his sweethearts, er, female assistants. I interviewed many of the surviving Shelby employees including Al Dowd and Phil Remington and Ford engineer Bob Negstad. So I can say I was writing about Cobras when most of today's Shelby writers were still in the cradle....I think that there will be a new era of finer scholarship where many of the mystery cars (such as two wrecks [put together into one car) and such will be clarified and the result is the surviving correct cars will be worth more. There's other marques that have no such effort and thus are of dubious value , such as Intermeccanica.

[Nedsel]

Originally Posted by Historybuff

I interviewed Shelby at least twice for my first book Shelby's Wildlife and he graciously wrote the forward.

Wallace, would that not have been the Foreword?

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by Nedsel

Wallace, would that not have been the Foreword?

It appears that Wally's editor preferred him using "Foreword" too.

[1ntCobra]

Trevor,

Back in the early 2000s didn't Wally try to get a review copy of "Cobra The Real Thing" by offering to stop by Malta and do some spy paintings of the AC facilities there and then come by your place and walk your dogs?

[Trevor Legate]

1ntCobra

He did indeed! We tried to brush it off a fake noos but they caught him trying to leave Malta with a bag full of preparatory sketches. He's been in the downtown Malta slammer ever since although he'll never admit it....and my dogs never did get walked.

[Trevor Legate]

1ntCobra

He did indeed! We tried to brush it off a fake noos but they caught him trying to leave Malta with a bag full of preparatory sketches. He's been in the downtown Malta slammer ever since although he'll never admit it....and my dogs never did get walked.