Western garb worn by Shelby?

[bitzman]

In a story by Jamie Kitman on Shelby that appeared in Automobile magazine some time ago, Kitman casually mentioned that, in a trip to Shelby's office HQ, which I presume was in Gardena behind the racing tire shop, that there was a "whole room of Western clothing."

I looked at lots of old pictures in all the books on Shelby but can only find one piece of Western clothing he wore regularly for years--a black cowboy hat with a white beaded hatband about one inch wide with some sort of Aztec-style pattern of alternate colored beads. When Shelby was the Chrysler spokesman for Dodge, the hat was back but the hatband was changed to a metallic silver which looked "up market' compared to the Indian hatband but less "true West" to me. Upgrading the hatband was probably some ad agency art director's idea.

I have never seen a picture of Shelby in cowboy boots--he seemed to prefer loafers (maybe even Gucci loafers), and I have also never seen a picture of him in jeans (unless you want to count the striped overalls). So I wonder when that roomfull of Western clothing is used?

So that's my question--when have you seen ol 'Shel duded up in cowboy garb? Maybe real cowboys don't bother with that stuff....but I'll tell you, when you put on that 10-gallon hat, it gives you a whole different picture....

[vernonestes]

I think shelby owned a clothing company....did they sell western garb?
Vern

[bitzman]

The new Shelby organization has sanctioned several firms to make
Shelby branded clothing, but none of what I have seen is particularly Western.
One I haven't seen in person is the jacket he wore in the big color picture in the Vanity Fair article. It looked like some old jacket a mechanic would wear who builds rat rods. I think it was made by a firm called Wicked. Anyhow that is an interesting jacket when he could have worn any jacket he wanted. That story is a great one, see if you can get it at the library, it is nearly 4000-6000 words long and tells a lot of things I never heard before, like Shelby saying he was once a diamond merchant! It was published within the last 12 months.

[John76]

What about the Chili?! I imagine it is still around but i remember my mom cooking up the Shelby Chili in the brown bag.

[bitzman]

..years ago by Kraft. I think recently Shelby made an announcement that he is suing to get his image back from them as he was only intending to sell the mix not his image. He plans to re-enter the chili field. I remember once I was intending to go to a chili cookoff he was holding in Marina del rey on top of a skyscraper and told my wife: "We should go there, maybe nobody will know who he is" but on the way there I saw lots of cars and people wearing shirts that said like "Chili Cookers of Alaska" and I realized this was going to be one big wing ding and decided not to go as he wouldn't miss us. He got so big in the chili cookoff field he dominated it and then went on to something else, like breedingappaloosas.