We recently met up with Carroll Shelby at the Recent Peterson Museum Trans Am Tribute, where he’s been honored before. We were asked how the Shelby Driving shoes were doing at a2zracergear.com. Actually, the shoes one of our best sellers at ShelbyGear.com, we trumpeted proudly.
The Shelby Driving shoe was our first line and when we were trying to come up with an idea of design & style, the Cobra leaped out at us. Its no wonder, the Peterson Museum refers to Mr. Shelby as the father of American hi performance vehicles.
Many may not be aware that Shelby personally raced automobiles in the 1950s (sometimes while donning his unique striped overalls). Motor vehicles Mr. Shelby raced includes the MG TC (similar to the one in which he won his 1st race), and the scarce 1959 Corvette Italia, which was instrumental in creating his collaboration with Ford.
Of course, the cars he is best known for are the sexy Cobras. The first one was finished in 1962, model number CSX2000. Back then, Mr. Shelby designed and built several, now priceless, racing Cobras like the first of five 289FIA models, which won their class at Le Mans, and Mr. Shelby’s Daytona Coupe, the only US vehicle to win FIA World Manufacturers Championship. Putting an exact value on Carroll original competition versions is next to impossible; experts suggest their worth in the many millions of dollars.
Carrol Shelby sullied forth to manage several racing teams for other Ford-powered race cars, like the 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning GT40 Mark I, laquered with the blue & orange of the Le Mans-winning Gulf Oil team cars.
Only twenty two of these awesome big-block 427 Competition Cobra cars were built before the introduction of the only slightly more tractable Street Competition (S/C) version. Carrol Shelby even created a drag racer; a threatening small-block powered Dragonsnake, which, in its day, outran every vehicle in its class, including the big-block Corvettes. Carroll painstakingly modded other Ford-powered comp vehicles, like the 1965 GT350 Mustang. One of them was used in the Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving.
After making his unmistakable mark in motorsports history with Ford racer cars, he was lured away to create a number of Mopar-powered cars, including the turbocharged GLH (which he claimed stood for “Goes Like Hell”) and the GLHS (“Goes Like Hell Some More”). Only 500 of the latter model were ever made. In the 90′s he also designed a Dodge-powered CAN-AM spec racecar. Eventually, his collaboration with Chrysler resulted in the jaw dropping Dodge Viper.
A crowning achievement in Shelby’s life is the design of the Shelby Series I, powered by an Olds V-8. This association with General Motors and Olds made Shelby the first man ever to be involved in the creation of performance machines for each of the Big Three automakers. To this day, Carroll Shelby continues to be active, overseeing the daily activities of Carroll Shelby International, which designs and engineers high-performance cars. Among its many interests is the ongoing manufacture of quality Shelby Cobras, the legendary sports car that first made Shelby famous over four decades ago.
