Ever wanted to be a part of forwarding the cause of the Ford Mustang and its legendary history?  Now you can, with the opportunity to share rare photographs of not only the Mustang, but other notable Ford feature cars.  Mr. Wyss is back with a great start on an upcoming (Summer 2007) book and hopes that the public is going to be as instrumental now as they have been in the past.  Take a closer look at the plan in action inside, via a Q&A session.

Title: Cobra and Shelby Mustang Photo Archive: A new book that you can be a part of….

Q. Can you describe to us the type of book this is?

Wyss: Yes, it is a picture book, a sort of a personal photo album of Cobras and Shelby Mustangs  that I have come across in 40 years of documenting the Shelby American marque.

Q. What is the format?

Wyss: Horizontal. Admittedly the horizontal books have a harder time staying on the shelves in bookstores because they stick out a bit more but since cars are horizontal, you can make the pictures of cars bigger in books that are horizontal.

Q. On what basis did you choose the cars? First of all are the Cobras real Cobras or replicas?

Wyss: I chose the cars because they presented themselves in front of my camera. I aimed, I shot and looked at what I got later. I culled through hundreds of pictures to look for significant details, such as a car with more unusual features like some Comp or S/C Cobra accoutrements mixed in with a 427 Cobra that was built for the street.

Q. So the cars are modified?

Wyss: Oh, yes, in most cases most genuine A.C. Cobras have been modified by a succession of owners. Some have been brought all the way from road use 40 plus years ago to a “Comp” look and are now being brought back to a street look, the way they were in the first place.

Q.What about replicas? Why do you include those?

Wyss: Yes, because, whether the purists like it or not, replica Cobras now far outnumber the real A.C. Cobras of which there can by definition never be more than 1,011 cars. Now some of the replicas are becoming more developed and refined that the originals, so a constituency of fans for
those cars has developed as well as for the originals. But wherever possible I show a real AC Cobra so those owners of replicas will have more information on how to make their cars more authentic looking.

Q. Do you think that's a trend?

Wyss: Oh, yes, I met one owner,Bob Shaw, who owned a  replica and took five years to make his replica Cobra look like the FIA car similar to what Gurney raced at the Targa. He had the right color, the right details down to the "dimples" for the FIA suitcase in the trunk lid.

Q. Where did you shoot the pictures?

Wyss: The bulk of them were shot at Monterey at the historic races, but many times I’d go up to Willow Springs on a Cobra club day and shoot pictures, plus I went to a few Shelby conventions.

Q. What about original shots, going back to the original days?

A. I have a few of those, and it’s nice to see that many of the restored Cobras are looking pretty much like they did originally.

Q. Did you have Ford cooperation in doing the book?

A. It’s not an official book and whenever possible I tried to use my own photography rather than the over-used press shots. Some owners of particularly interesting cars sent me pictures that they took themselves.

Q. Are any of the owners well known?

A. You don’t have to go very far in the Cobra world before you meet Lynn Park, who everyone calls “Mr. Cobra.” He let me shoot his cars at many events and helped identify many cars that I didn’t know the history of. In fact he wrote the forward.

Q. Anybody else we would know?

A. Steve Volk, of the Shelby-American Collection in Colorado. He’s  an archivist of sorts and has provided something from their archives , which I think will eventually be a definitive archive on the company’s golden years.  He also wrote a preface to welcome readers to the subject.

Q. What camera do you use?

Wyss: I use a Nikon F3, with a 50mm close up lens or a 250 mm zoom.

Q. Going back to historical pictures do you have any of Shelby when he was a driver?

Wyss: Yes, I do. I came across some images of him at Palm Springs, racing a Maserati and a Ferrari. A lot of the newer Cobra fans don’t realize that before Shelby became an automaker, he  was a big –name sports car driver in the mid-’50s, so much so that Enzo Ferrari tried to hire him as a factory team driver.

Q. Why didn’t he go for that? That sounds like every driver’s dream?

Wyss: (chuckling) Because old man Enzo low-balled him so badly—wanting him to drive practically for free. Shelby could make more being a chicken farmer.  So he stormed out of that meeting, reportedly saying something to the effect of: “Someday ah’m gonna come back here and beat your ass.”

Q. Doesn’t the hardbound “coffee table” book by Leffingwell on Shelby pretty much fill this market niche?

Wyss: In terms of photography I have to admit that David Newhardt and Randy Leffingwell are  far better photographers than I—they wait,  for example, for the light to be just right before pressing the shutter button on each car. But I think that I am analyzing or interpreting many of my photos more in the captions, giving the pictures their due as far as their relative importance in Shelby-American history for example.  I would say that neither Leffingwell nor Newhardt are experts in the marque, but are journeymen historians who go from one marque to another. This week it's Pontiacs, next week John Deere tractors and so on.

Q. What help did you have from outsiders?

Wyss: Much help. The internet never ceases to amaze me. There’s always somebody who happens to have the picture I need and who is willing to help.

Q. What’s your timeline?

Wyss:   The book is due in the stores in August ’07 and I am looking at the end of March as the date I have to finalize picture selection.

Q. So is there anything you are still looking for?

Wyss: Yes, if I may, I’d like to run  a shopping list to see if any of your readers has pictures on the list so they can contact me, first by e-mail, and then if I see a picture with possibilities, we can work out how to an image of it to me. Probably the safest way is for them to do a high resolution scan of the original and e-mail it to me.

Q. What’s high resolution and what’s the e-mail address?

Wyss: High resolution would be far beyond 300 dpi and the e-mail address is: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Q. What would they receive as a result of their co-operation?

Wyss: Well, I can use that old saw that they will be a part of history, but also I can add that I will add their name and their town to the caption, and have them approve the caption if there’s still time. For instance, I might say something like “Joel Smith of Provincetown, Mass shot this USRRC road racer in 1965. Note the unusual fender flaring, etc. etc.” Plus of course if their picture is used I'd give them an autographed book out of the author's ten copies.

Q. Where’s that shopping list?

Wyss: Here goes

--any shot of Shelby-American team Cobras shot between 1962 and 1967, particularly in the UK, on the Continent or at Nassau or at Sebring 12-hour or Daytona 24 hour.

--427 Cobras being raced back in the Sixties, even if the shot is a static one in the pits

--The Ghia 7-liter Cobra. It was dark blue, with lift off hardtop, white painted wheels, at ’65 Turin show

--Any shots taken at races where the Shelby crew are wearing the famous COBRA blue shirts or T-shirts

--Any shots of Shelby talking to a driver

--Any shots of Trans-Am notchback Mustangs run by Shelby Racing Co. or Terlingua Racing

--Any shots of Dragonsnakes other than the Hal Heindel car , which I already have art on.

--Any shots of the fliptop Cobra (second big block prototype on a leaf sprung chassis)

--Any shots personally shot by anybody of the XD Cobra roadster or Cougar II coupe when they were displayed at SAAC convention

--Any shots of the recent Cobra two seater roadster or GR-1 concept cars from Ford at an auto show