The Peterson Museum has honored Carroll Shelby before. We caught up with him at a recent Trans Am event, there. The Peterson refers to Carroll Shelby as the father of American high-performance automobiles. Carrol The Shelby collection of legendary automobiles spans over five decades. From Carrol's often imitated, never duplicated, race-winning Shelby Cobras to the first Dodge Viper and Shelby Series I.
You might not be aware that often donning his striped overalls, Shelby would race cars in the 1950's.
Of course, it was the Cobra that turned Carroll shelby from tuner/racer to motorsports celebrity. The 1st one was built in '62, model number CSX2000. In those days, Carroll built several, now priceless, racing Cobras such as the first of only five 289FIA models, which won their class at 24 heures of Le Mans, as well as his Daytona Coupe, the only American vehicle to catch the flag at the FIA World Manufacturers Championship. Professional car collectors place the original racing Cobras at a worth of millions of dollars.
Shelby was responsible for the race-winning GT40 Mark 1. Covered in Gulf blue and orange, the team enjoyed winning LeMans.
Only 22 of these awesome big-block 427 Competition Cobra cars were made before the introduction of the only slightly more tractable Street Competition (S/C) version. Shelby even made a drag racer; a formidable small-block powered Dragonsnake, which, back in the day, outran every racer in its class, including the big-block Corvettes. Carroll painstakingly modded other Ford-powered comp vehicles, like the '65 GT350 Mustang. One of them was used in the Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving.
Shelby also made a relationship with Mopar, after a great run with Ford, including the turbocharged GLH (which he said stood for “Goes Like Hell”) and the GLHS (“Goes Like Hell Some More”). 500 of the latter model were ever made. In the 90's Mr. Shelby also developed a Dodge-powered CAN-AM spec racecar. His collaboration with Chrysler resulted in the awesome Dodge Viper.
If a Cobra is a bit out of your reach, but you still want to be part of the 'in' crowd there are several cool Shelby apparel items, even a fully licensed recreation of the Team Shelby Staduim Jacket, an excellent choice for any season.
A crowning achievement in Shelby's life is the design of the Shelby Series I, which is powered by an Oldsmobile V-8. The association with General Motors and Oldsmobile made Shelby the first ever to be involved in the design of performance cars for all of the Big 3 automakers. To this day, Shelby continues to be active, managing the day-to-day activities of Carroll Shelby International, which designs and engineers high-performance cars. Remarkably, among its many interests is the ongoing manufacture of quality Shelby Cobras, the legendary sports car which first made Mr. Shelby famous more than four decades ago.
More Racing History Stuff #randurls1#
You might not be aware that often donning his striped overalls, Shelby would race cars in the 1950's.
Of course, it was the Cobra that turned Carroll shelby from tuner/racer to motorsports celebrity. The 1st one was built in '62, model number CSX2000. In those days, Carroll built several, now priceless, racing Cobras such as the first of only five 289FIA models, which won their class at 24 heures of Le Mans, as well as his Daytona Coupe, the only American vehicle to catch the flag at the FIA World Manufacturers Championship. Professional car collectors place the original racing Cobras at a worth of millions of dollars.
Shelby was responsible for the race-winning GT40 Mark 1. Covered in Gulf blue and orange, the team enjoyed winning LeMans.
Only 22 of these awesome big-block 427 Competition Cobra cars were made before the introduction of the only slightly more tractable Street Competition (S/C) version. Shelby even made a drag racer; a formidable small-block powered Dragonsnake, which, back in the day, outran every racer in its class, including the big-block Corvettes. Carroll painstakingly modded other Ford-powered comp vehicles, like the '65 GT350 Mustang. One of them was used in the Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving.
Shelby also made a relationship with Mopar, after a great run with Ford, including the turbocharged GLH (which he said stood for “Goes Like Hell”) and the GLHS (“Goes Like Hell Some More”). 500 of the latter model were ever made. In the 90's Mr. Shelby also developed a Dodge-powered CAN-AM spec racecar. His collaboration with Chrysler resulted in the awesome Dodge Viper.
If a Cobra is a bit out of your reach, but you still want to be part of the 'in' crowd there are several cool Shelby apparel items, even a fully licensed recreation of the Team Shelby Staduim Jacket, an excellent choice for any season.
A crowning achievement in Shelby's life is the design of the Shelby Series I, which is powered by an Oldsmobile V-8. The association with General Motors and Oldsmobile made Shelby the first ever to be involved in the design of performance cars for all of the Big 3 automakers. To this day, Shelby continues to be active, managing the day-to-day activities of Carroll Shelby International, which designs and engineers high-performance cars. Remarkably, among its many interests is the ongoing manufacture of quality Shelby Cobras, the legendary sports car which first made Mr. Shelby famous more than four decades ago.
More Racing History Stuff #randurls1#
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Posted by: Tony Adamowicz | 06/27/2010 at 05:43 PM