Next time you’re in Las Vegas, check out the Shelby Museum.

This past spring, my wife and I made the drive up to Las Vegas to see our friend (and PHR contributor) Kenny Wayne Shepherd play at the Orleans Hotel. The sold-out show was fantastic, but left us with plenty of free time during the middle of the day. Lucky for us, there are several car-oriented things to do in Sin City if you’re up for it. There’s the Strip At Las Vegas, as well as the Speedway. If nothing’s going on there, you can always take the gang carting, like we did. But the coolest thing we did was take a tour of the Shelby Auto plant, which is in North Las Vegas, nestled right up against the race track.

On our weekend, NASCAR was in town, so the place was closed. I had to pull a few strings to get in, but normally, the Shelby factory and Shelby museum are open to the public. (You may want to call ahead on your next trip to Vegas because big race weekends usually shut the place down.) Normally, the museum is open from 8am to 4pm, Monday through Friday, and tours of the adjacent plant happen at 10:30 am every day. (You can call Shelby at 702-942-7325).

At the museum, you can see the very first Shelby Cobra, as well as many other significant Cobras and Mustangs built over the years. Shelby also manufactures supercars based on the newest version of the Mustang, and we got to see the top offerings there in the museum. Shelby also handcrafts new Cobras and the line of Terlinga classic Mustangs in the adjacent workshop area. We got a chance to check out several cars in progress, and we were all impressed with the level of craftsmanship. A big thanks to Gary Patterson of Shelby for taking the time to give our group a super good time!