We had another super busy day in Las Vegas starting with a drive south of the airport to the Shelby Heritage Center. If you have read my blog posts in the past or know me personally, you will know I love cars and motorcycles, especially the classics, American muscle cars, European motorcars, the early American racing cars, and the history surrounding them. There are many big names involved with making our automobile industry what it is, and one name that comes to the forefront is Carroll Shelby.
Carroll Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified during the late 1960s and early 2000s. He established Shelby American in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles. Carroll was also a race car driver and his highlight was as a co-driver of the winning 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans entry.
Here in Las Vegas, the Shelby Heritage Center is a 15,000 square foot facility established in 2013 that helps to tell the story of Carroll Shelby, an iconic American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Inside the center is over 30 beautiful Shelby cars and a huge souvenir shop. More about that in a minute.
Adjacent to the Heritage Center is the 150,000 square foot Shelby automobile production facility. Much of what happens at the shop facility revolves around the enhancement of V-8 supercharged Mustangs into Shelby Super Snake Mustangs. Carroll Shelby passed away in 2012 at the age of 89, but his legacy lives on in this facility. The cobra snake moniker comes from the revered Shelby cobra logo, which is a world renown icon. A facility in Indiana creates the beautiful Shelby pickups.
A look through the windows into the production facility.
Appears like they are shut down for Friday.
We entered the facility and walked through the souvenir shop into the Heritage Center. This is what we saw! Wow!!
We walked down one side of the displays and back up the other. The room was full of absolutely awesome Cobra Mustangs, Ford Mustangs that have been modified by Carroll Shelby's "Shelby America", A few more pictures of some of the beautiful Shelby Cobra Mustangs:
Every man-cave/ garage should have a fridge like this one! It can be yours for a cool $17,000 !!
We made our way back through the souvenir shop without buying anything, although the prices were not bad.
That's it for the Shelby Heritage Center. Next stop was the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum! This facility opened in it's new location in 2021 and encompasses 25,000 square feet of nothing but pinball machines and the like.
It is an initiative of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club to house and display the world's largest pinball collection, open to the public. The machines belong to one club member (Tim Arnold), and range from 1950s up to 1990s pinball machines. There is a prevalence of games from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as this was the 'heyday' of pinball.
Most of the machines were operational
Old school electro-mechanical operation! And tons of incandescent light bulbs - no LED's in here!
Maybe Zoltar can turn me into an adult like it did with Tom Hanks!!
Doreen trying her luck!
We threw away a few quarters there, but Doreen retained the rest to do laundry later! We walked from the Pinball Museum south and cross Las Vegas Blvd into the median where the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign is. The back side of the sign has a different message!
The sign dates back to 1959 and was designed by Betty Willis. Today the sign is 100% powered by solar and remains as an iconic part of Las Vegas. We could not come here without visiting it, as did many others!! There is a sizeable parking lot in the median for all the visitor's and the line to get your picture taken was substantial! We took several off to the side and headed back to the truck.
On the way back to the truck we paused at the Harley Davidson dealer for a picture with Doreen in between the Las and Vegas.
We took the longer way back to the RV rather than using I-15 we drove up Las Vegas Blvd. The sights were amazing. A few pictures:
One of the building we passed was the pawn shop made famous by the TV show "Pawn Stars". Due to the traffic we did not stop, but had to snap a couple pictures in passing.
After lunch we drove onto the main side of Nellis Air Force Base and did a quick a quick tour of the Thunderbirds Museum.
F-16C Block 32 static display used during the 1992 season In 2008 they upgraded to Block 52's
Inside this building is a small display of historical items relating to the Thunderbirds. We watched a short video and then walked through the hallway with the displays.
The different aircraft that have been used on the Thunderbirds Aerial Demonstration Team.
An interesting fact is that the aircraft used by the team and the same as are used by our Air Force pilots on missions around the globe. The primary difference is that they are equipped with smoke-producing device for the shows.
We made a quick stop at the commissary to pick up a few items and then headed back to the FamCamp for the evening. Even though it was 100F outside, I grilled up some pork chops, potatoes and sweet corn for dinner, and it was delicious!
That is it for today. We do not have plans yet for tomorrow.
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