Kit Car

Shell Valley Companies

Kit Car Shop Tour

By Eric Geisert

If you are thinking about building a kit or replicar, you've probably run across the name Shell Valley. That might be because Shell Valley Fiberglass, named after the valley the company occupies in eastern Nebraska, was founded by three brothers in 1971, making it one of the oldest names in the kit industry still in business.

At that time, the company centered on a fiberglass business that created agricultural-related products. The brothers soon realized that the agriculture business was cyclical, and their next pursuit was to build replacement bodies, fenders, and hoods for Jeeps. In the late '70s one of the brothers did some research and found there was a passion for the original Shelby Cobra cars; he was able to obtain molds from an original car, and the company began building Cobra replicas on a very small basis.

In 1997 Shell Valley was purchased by Rich Anderson, a Nebraska native who had experience in managing and directing a large manufacturing company, and it was under Anderson's watchful eye that his new company started to grow. Shell Valley Companies (as it was now known) soon began offering additional car bodies to their product line, including a Model A roadster (available for around $12,200) and a C-Type Jaguar (in the $21,000 range).

By 1999, Rich developed a relationship with Midstates Classic Cars and Parts (also located in Nebraska) and brokered a deal to buy the company and have it become a part of the SVC family. The key to the acquisition, Anderson believed, was to retain the company's personality and sterling reputation by having its previous owner, Bob Kallio, run the operation as a separate but equal part of Shell Valley. Anderson's theory has paid off, as Midstates continues to be a major force in the crowded Cobra aftermarket. In 2004 Midstates moved their assembly operations to SVC's base in Platte Center, Nebraska, and currently operates out of an 8,000-square-foot facility.

Nearly every aspect of the Midstates Cobra is different from the roadster offered by Shell Valley, but customers wanting a Cobra from either Shell Valley or Midstates have a choice as to what options they might like to have with their vehicle. For instance, while the Midstates body is hand-laid, the SVC body is shot with a chopper gun and reinforced with Kevlar matting in critical stress points (door hinges, hood lips, etc.). Kit prices for the SVC Cobra start around $8,100. One of the main selling points for the all of the SVC vehicles is they manufacture roughly 80 percent of the car themselves on-site, as they don't believe in the donor/used car source for parts.

Soon, more bodies began to roll off SVC's design desk, including a Cheetah (similar to the Chevy-powered race cars of the '60s) and, after purchasing assets from R&D Design Concepts, a stylized Daytona Coupe that sells in kit form for about $12,200. Business was so good for SVC in 2003 that the company decided to open a sales office in Columbia, Connecticut. One of the advantages of having this separate office is that Shell Valley can also offer a turnkey-minus Cobra built at this new facility with paint, upholstery, wheels, and everything else complete (sans motor and trans) for about $28,990.Many of Shell Valley's customer's cars can be found in the pages of KIT CAR (one recently as a pull-out poster), but so can in-depth magazine project cars. One such car was the C-Type Jag buildup from the '04 season that was eventually featured on the cover of KIT CAR (Jan. '05), and more recently it has been the ECOCAT project (a hybrid mating a Cheetah body with a GM Ecotec motor) that is currently featured in a series of buildup articles running in each issue of KIT CAR.

The commitment Rich Anderson puts into his line of vehicles doesn't end when the whistle blows at 5:00. Having had the experience of working at the highest levels of corporate America, he knows the advantage of being organized, and what having good connections means to the continued success of a business. To that end, his company is a member of SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association--the international trade organization that not only works for the automotive aftermarket, but also with the Federal government to write auto-favorable laws) and he is one of only a few businesses that has teamed with some other Cobra manufacturers to fight varied lawsuits brought by Ford Motor Company.

Anderson states: "It is my belief that it would be far better if all of the kit car manufacturing people would get together under one organization, which I think should be headed up by SEMA, and this organization would collectively watch out for the good of all. Obviously the industry is small enough that having everyone band together certainly creates a much larger voice. Issues that need to be addressed are licensing and insurance of kit car vehicles, as well as the safety concerns associated with everyone's designs and products. One continued threat to the industry is all of the trademark, tradedress, and tradename lawsuits that take place. The industry is so small that it would seem that if everyone was singing off the same sheet of music, it could help the big players as well as the small."

But, when he isn't running the company, you can sometimes find Rich at one of the Good Ol' Time Racing Association's events. GOTRA was started 10 years ago in Fremont, Nebraska, as a way to turn back the racing clock one lap at a time. GOTRA currently has 44 members, and the cars must be '48 or older; be very safe, but full-blown, race cars; and are raced on 20 dirt tracks throughout the Midwest (where just about anything goes). The tracks vary from 3/8- to 1/2-mile, and speeds get to about 100 mph. Anderson regularly races a '32 Ford coupe with a 302 Chevy motor with a quickchange rear, four-wheel-disc brakes, and a lightened four-speed aluminum transmission that has been converted to a two-speed.

Another company Rich recently started is called International Wholesale, a major wholesale-only supplier to the hot rod industry as well as the kit car industry. Currently Shell Valley is ready to debut a new line of '32 Fords (a five-window coupe plus a roadster) and will soon be introducing a '27 Track T roadster, as well as a T-Bucket roadster.

With the satellite office in Connecticut and the main base in Nebraska, SVC employs roughly 40 people--everybody from salesmen and tech guys who will answer your questions on the phone to 'glass layers and chassis welders. They don't grow any rubber trees out back, but if they did, we're sure Rich Anderson would figure out a way to make his own tires and have every aspect of car building located under one roof!