Shelby’s an Ass

A Shelby's Ass

It seems Carroll Shelby is suing his most loyal supporters. I heard the first echoes of this in Sports Car Market a while ago. Now I guess it is happening.

I liken this to when Ford threatened to sue XKEdata.com concerning the use of various trademarks and whatnot… except this is even worse. This is a recognized car club, whose very existence has in many ways created order out of chaos. Without SAAC Shelby cars would not be the valued items they are today. Their documentation, which was neglected by Shelby himself, has been painstakingly re-created by SAAC. Without that documentation (The SAAC Registry) a Shelby is only slightly more valuable than the donor Ford or AC (Or Chrysler, oh wait, …never mind) car that it started life as. Now Mr. Shelby wants to take it all under his dubiously competent wing? The mind boggles.

Car clubs, and Registries are NOT for-profit industries. Those that treat them as such are doomed to failure. These are labors of love and dedication. This is the whole reason why Mr. Shelby didn’t want to do these tasks in the first place. Perhaps his memory is going in his old age?

The photo above was taken on the rainy New England 2000 rally. IIRC it was a rally checkpoint at a fish hatchery somewhere. Yes Sandro, I’m pretty sure that is a Jensen-Healey in the background.

Damn Useless Cats!

Merdre!

I went out to the barn today during a brief sunny interlude between winter storms to move the jag out, in preparation for replacing my exhaust. I opened the bonnet and saw the above in the area next to the battery (I have a battery cut-off switch that is always the first thing I do when starting the car.) I need to rearrange the lift to do this exhaust job.

Upon further investigation I found this around the brake system:

shit!

Obviously some small rodent has taken up residence in the slumbering Jaguar. We have several cats who live in the barn that have for years have kept the car mouse-free… they are obviously sleeping on the job! I can’t stand the creatures (I’m allergic to them for one thing) but I tolerate them if only for this single purpose. I’m informing the rest of the family, who DO like them far more than I do, that they are to have their rations cut. Obviously they have become fat and lazy and incapable of the task.

grrrr.

I ran into town (in the 65E) and grabbed a box of moth balls and threw a few around the engine bay and interior. The car is up on ramps and jack stands now (above the dropped lift) and I’m in the process of removing the exhaust system. More news on that later.

Movie Review: “Cloverfield”

My family decided that we’d all go to the movies this weekend, so we rolled into Stanwood and hit the first show of the day on Saturday. Nick, being 14, wanted to see Meet The Spartans. Sue, being a chick, wanted to see the chickflick 27 Dresses. Chris & I, being men, wanted nothing to do with either, so we chose Cloverfield. I bought four tickets for three movies and we split up after walking in. Not being a TV watcher, I knew nothing about Cloverfield before I entered beyond two things:

  • It was a monster movie
  • It was filmed in that massively annoying “shaky cam” style

I love monster movies. I saw John Carpenter’s The Thing and the original Alien when I was a teenager and they primed my brain for the whole monster movie genre.

However, I hate the whole shaky cam style of filming. It is distracting beyond belief. I have tried to watch a few things done this way, and it has completely turned me off. The new version of Battlestar Galactica is a great example – the camera wobbles and wanders to the point of distraction. I watched one or two episodes and never went back. I figured if Cloverfield drove me similarly nuts that I’d walk over and join Nick at his movie.

It was fun to sit down in front of a movie I knew nothing about, and just let it happen with no expectations. I could not have picked a better movie for this situation.

If you haven’t seen it, and don’t wish to be spoiled, do NOT click “more”…. otherwise click to continue.
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