Dinner tonight was at the Il Posto Italian restaurant in Southfield. It is an authentic Italian restaurant--photos of the owner (who was our waiter tonight) alongside Luciano Pavarotti adorn the walls--with a quiet setting, made more personal thanks to Ford renting the restaurant for our private dinner.

Attendees included three on the 2006 Motor Trend power list: #13 Mark Fields, Executive Vice President and President of the Americas, Ford Motor Company; #28 Hau Thai-Tang, Director of Special Vehicle Team and Advanced Product Creation, Ford Motor Company; and #34 Carroll Shelby, entrepreneur. Also at dinner were Motor Trend editor-in-chief Angus MacKenzie and executive editor Matt Stone, as well as representatives from the Mustang Club of America's Mustang Times and AutoBlog and PR reps from Shelby Automotive and SVT. There were 18 at our table.

The dinner served as a birthday party of sorts for Mr. Shelby, who turns 83 on the 11th. We spent the majority of our three and a half hours together discussing the state of the industry, questioning the decisions of other manufacturers, and recounting automotive stories from our past (most regarding run-ins with law enforcement).

The setting didn't lend itself to conducting even candid interviews, but I should be able to get most of your questions answered when I return to the show tomorrow.

 

A once in a lifetime experience, I am jealous, as I am sure we all are. Hope you had fun, and enjoy tomorrow!

 

Very nice.

 

You are one lucky guy Brad! and for that i hate you

 

Dude, you are the man! I'm looking forward to the Q&A post. Love the Pic with you, Carrol and Hau. You will have to get that one framed.

 

That is awesome Brad!! Sounds like a great restaurant and an even better time!!!!

 

Can I safely assume that the Ford "Kool-Aid" was flowing very well at the table? Any general assessments on the state of FMC?

 

would be once in a lifetime for most of us, but didn't Brad get to do something like this last year?

:worship:

 

That's awesome Brad, congratulations!!! We all can only aspire to be you!!

 

Sounds awesome! Pretty sure you had a blast of a time

 

mmmm italian

oh and meeting all them dudes is nice too...


but italian...

 

Dude,

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade but...

It's awesome that you're out rubbing elbows with the big wigs, but you've got to ask yourself why you're able to do that. It's because you run the definitive Mustang web site.

The problem is - is that while you're out having dinner with HT etc... your web site is suffering. GT500 picture and video links don't work. It's kind of sad at this momentus time, things don't work. Seems like you need to hire someone to fix it.

I'm a nobody and I can see this. Just think about the industry insiders that have all day to see it. Next time they'll say, OH, Brad, he can't keep a web site running when there's a big event happening..............

Remember the little people when you get to the top, and remember how you got there.

I hope you can over come this and be great again.

 

Last I checked Brad himself was not the Internet Service Provider.

That's like blaming the finance manager at Ford, because line 3's robot was down

 

Brad is there because he started a silly little site and it grew into THIS
because of each and everyone of YOU. Thanks to Brad and thanks to
all of us Brad gets to sit in with some top Ford people and bring back
information we will never get from Motor Trend or Blue Oval News.

 

So the guy who brought us together and created this site and is posting pics and info FROM the show, AND is getting us a direct pipeline to the friggin guys designing the cars we are so absolutely nuts about……. is getting slagged by you for WHAT now?

I am nuts about the GT 500 myself…. But you know what?? I think if I have to wait an extra day or three because some link is down to pics and videos…. Gee I think I will survive.

And truthfully, I have already seen enough since Sunday/Monday to satiate me (all pics and vids certainly seemed to be working for me earlier in the week….)

Go troll somewhere else.

 

Or maybe the internet/webpage could not handle the sheer volume of people coming to check out the number 1 site for information. When the site is set up and operating fine with 50-100 people easily a day and that jumps up to 3000+ a day, it might cause some problems.

Brad remembers the "little guy" all the time. I have had the priviledge of meeting Brad once in person. I was pleased how down to earth he was, just a normal guy, and he did not have an inflated ego for starting the best site out there.

Now I am in the military and lo and behold we have systems that crash all the time as well. You would think with "cutting edge" technology we could keep it up all the time. Things happen and the site will be back up again soon. It always has been in the past when it has crashed. It crashed when the Mustang came out for a few hours due to the volume. There was less than 4000 members back then... now we are over 10000 registered members. That in addition to being much better known and having all the visitors that show up from other sites due to links.

Before you start evaluating Brad's state of mind you should consider the state of the website's ability to handle a massive influx.

Now enjoy the site and have a little patience. All will be back.

 

Rubbing elbows is far more important than keeping you happy.

I'd leave Brad alone. The people on this site have the utmost respect for him and will always back him up.

 

What a &#!?$#* clown!

 

I was inconsiderate, selfish and I was just plain wrong, and I apologize to you Brad.

Rock on.

 

:scratch: Change your tune so suddenly? Whatever...