SHELBY GOES PUBLIC; Stock in new company soars in early trading.(News)

Byline: BOB GRITZINGER

Amid takeover rumors and parent-company bankruptcy proceedings, Carroll Shelby has pulled a fast one on everybody interested in what happens to his Las Vegas-based sports car business. Shelby has gone public.

As of June 3, Shelby entities-formerly known as Shelby Automobiles Inc. and Carroll Shelby Licensing Inc.-were acquired by a defunct public start-up company called Ginseng Forest Inc., which promptly renamed itself Carroll Shelby International Inc.

John Luft, president of the newly formed Shelby corporation, said Ginseng merely served as the entity to provide an easy way for Shelby to go public, a process he likened to minting a new Cobra starting with just the shell of an original from the 1960s.

"It's like taking a wrecked Cobra, saving the VIN [vehicle identification number] and building a new body,'' says Luft. "We've rebodied the shell.''

Stock in the new company, owned 70 percent by Shelby and 30 percent by Ginseng's owners, Harold and Sam Sciotto, started at $1.40 per share the first day of trading (still listed under Ginseng's old code as GSGF on OTC) and rose to $4.25 per share within a day, with some 11,000 shares sold, Luft says.

Luft said the intent of the stock offering is to raise capital for the new company, but also to "ensure the future of the brand'' and to protect deposits placed on cars ordered in recent months. Luft said the company has already resumed ...