The 67th Annual Concours d’Elegance was held at Pebble Beach on Sunday August 20th. The event is held on the 18th fairway of the famous Pebble Beach Golf course and is the most unique competitive auto show on the planet. It is the only day during the year that the golf course is closed. I had the pleasure of being a guest as a Dealer for Chrysler Dodge Jeep Corporation for this event in 2003. If you are a car enthusiast, the Concours has to be on your bucket list. The year I, (Randy Courtney) was there, the Sunday event was hosted by Jay Leno and the featured car was the Ford GT40. That week at Pebble was one of my all time favorites.
One of the major headlines of this year’s event was that the very first Shelby Cobra sold for $13.75 million dollars. A new record for the sale of an American Car.
The picture above is the first Shelby Cobra built.
This was a wow moment and reflective one for me. The wow was the dollar amount and the reflection was that I had the unique pleasure of meeting Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca in the same year. The year was 1991. I met Carroll at the Highland Park Presbyterian Day School open house. He was there to visit his granddaughter and I was there visiting my son’s teacher and his classroom.
I introduced myself to Carroll, a gracious, friendly, larger than life Texan. It did not take us long to get into “car speak”. A few months before our meeting I had opened my first car dealership in Dallas (Bledsoe Dodge) after spending eighteen years in the computer and information processing business. Carroll was working on a few projects, namely the Dodge Viper, with Lee Iacocca, current supreme commander of Chrysler Corporation. Carroll was a true motor head, trained pilots in WWII, became a race car driver, auto designer, and was America’s auto performance guru. He had a wonderful promoter personality and a distinctive engineering eye.
I met Lee Iacocca at my first Dealer meeting in Denver Colorado the summer of 1991. I still remember his message to the dealer’s that summer. He shared with us the prototypes of the new Dodge truck, the Dodge Viper and other new Dodge cars and said “we are spending $5 billion on rebates, $5 billion on promotion, and $5 billion on research and design. If you do not go back to your dealerships and start ordering our cars, you will not see any of these great new products in your showroom.” He wanted each of our commitments so the products could make it to production. Lee, as well as Carroll, had a way of making their point.
Lee, made his mark in the auto world by being the Program/Project champion for the Ford Mustang. He had a tall order to convince Henry Ford to invest in the project. If you have ever been a product or project manager you know how blind you can become to the success of the project. You become a maniac with a mission. That’s who the hard charging Iacocca was.
The picture above is the first Mustang ever sold.
The Mustang is one of the most successful products ever introduced in the United States. Many of BBC Motorsports customers ask us what vehicles do you specialize in? They are always under the impression that we have mostly high end vehicles. The facts are that we do not specialize in any particular vehicle. If you were describing BBC Motorsports inventory, you would depict it as having great breath but not a lot of depth. In layman terms, that means we inventory a large quantity of many different vehicle makes and models without a lot of duplication. However, there are three specific models that stand out from the crowd in terms of depth/duplication. We stock and sell several hundred FordMustang’s, Jeep Wrangler’s, Cadillac sedans, and Ford F150 Trucks annually.
What makes the Lee Iacocca Standard Mustang and the Carroll Shelby performance Mustang so popular? Each new design is stylish, fun to drive, reliable, competitively priced, and built with the highest safety standards. Mustangs have always been a great value proposition for the new and used car buyer as well as the sports car enthusiasts. The V6 Mustang is a great first car for young buyers. The high end V8 performance Mustang’s are best suited for the more experienced drivers.
Just last week we had a local banking executive trade-in his 2012 Acura TL for a 2016 Ford Mustang 5.0 GT with many custom features. He was searching for a fun vehicle to drive and was very excited after taking delivery of his new lightning blue 5.0 Mustang GT. Before he purchased the Mustang, he opted for a vehicle pre-purchase inspection by a third party. He chose to have the vehicle inspected by Dallas Mustang Parts and Accessories at 10720 Sandhill Road in Dallas. The vehicle passed the pre-inspection with flying colors and the transaction was completed. He was ready for the Labor Day weekend.
This week we had a previous customer return to buy her second Mustang in less than a month. Un-fortunately her first Mustang was totaled in an accident without injury. She replaced her silver 2013 Mustang with a newer 2014 V6 Mustang, this time in red.
If you are looking for a great looking Mustang that is fun, exciting, reliable and easy to maintain, check out BBC Motorsports in Dallas. It’s a fun place to shop and you will enjoy the modern day car buying experience. You will save some money as well!