Held on Saturday, August 17, 2024 towards the end of Monterey Car Week, Concorso Italiano celebrated all things Italian, especially pertaining to Italian automobiles and the Italian way of life. For 2024 as with in many other years of the Concorso, non-Italian marques were also invited to attend. There was a smattering of American, British, and German vehicles also on exhibit, as if to provide a contrast to the numerous artful Italian automobiles that comprised a commanding presence at this year's event. Indeed, the Concorso Italiano media team even invited Classic Industries to partake in covering this longstanding Italian-themed super car and vintage iconic Italian marques celebration.

Classic Industries was at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca to witness and celebrate 50 years of vintage auto racing history with the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2024. When Classic Industries' humble scribe (namely me) learned about this vintage racing extravaganza, he knew where he wanted to be from August 14 through August 17, 2024.

Nowadays, if you are a vintage Shelby Mustang enthusiast and you have sufficient cash to purchase a 1965-1970 Shelby Mustang, you might be most likely to simply find, test drive, negotiate, and purchase the best possible example GT350, GT500, or GT500KR that you can afford. You might not be too concerned about the Shelby's exterior paint scheme.

A Classic Industries coworker told me several months ago to go visit the Segerstrom Shelby Event Center, in Irvine, California, and several times thereafter over the passing months. Every time he mentioned it, I'd make a mental note to myself while responding to him with something like, "Yeah, I gotta go there and check out all the Shelby Mustangs, Cobras, and Shelby Daytona coupes." 

Author's Note: This is a Classic Industries team member's car. As of this writing, we've logged over 900 miles on our Factory Five Racing Mk4 Cobra roadster replica. Since this is the very same sports car that is the subject of the book that I wrote, How To Build Cobra Kit Cars + Buying Used, we thought you would enjoy reading about our first test drive of the FFR Mk4 after Dad and I constructed this little road burner.

Before the professional sports acronym G.O.A.T. came to mean "Greatest Of All Time," it was the internal project name of the Ford Bronco and stood for “Goes Over Any Terrain.” With the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, that project code name was very apropos. Thanks to the involvement of some pretty sharp individuals like Lee Iacocca and Donald Frey, there was a pretty strong chance that G.O.A.T. would be successful. History tells us that these are the very same two Ford employees who developed and created the magnificent Mustang behind Henry Ford II’s back. They also assisted Carroll Shelby with the Ford GT40 program that enabled Ford to outrun every automotive manufacturer, including Ferrari, at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. They repeated this astonishing feat in 1967, 1968, and 1969.