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A
Living Legend
(now Deceased)
Carroll Shelby was
born in Leesburg, Texas, a town
of 150 people, on January 11,
1923.
When he was young,
Carroll had health problems. He
had a heart valve leakage problem
at age 7, and spent most of his
childhood until age 14 in bed. At
14 he was declared to have
"Outgrown it".
In his youth,
Carroll rode with his dad while
he was delivering mail in a 1928
Whippet. His dad drove fast
between mail stops and Carroll
used to urge him on with
"faster dad, faster".
The Whippet had a
top speed of about 65 mph, and that's
what they drove from Leesburg to Dallas
in 1929. They passed everybody on the
road.
In 1938, Carroll got a
Willys. In this car, he raced everybody
he could. One of his favorite spots to
drive was the Rail Road yard where he
would jump a crossing hump at about 70
mph. He was caught by the police during
one of his Rail Road yard driving
excursions and remanded to the custody of
his father. His punishment was loss of
his driving privileges for 6 months, a
fate that we are all sure was very
difficult for Carroll to handle.
In 1941, Carroll joined the
Army Air Corps. At this time, he was 5 ft
2 and weighed only 100 pounds. To get in,
he ate 12 bananas to weigh enough to meet
the minimum physical requirements. As we
all know, he's over 6 feet tall now and
would have no difficulty meeting minimum
weight.
In the Air Corp, he first
flew twin engine trainers and then moved
on to test piloting other planes. Always
ready for additional training and seat
time, he was known to take a plane out on
Sunday and buzz local herds of antelopes.
During his Air Corp career, he lost two
planes. One caught fire and the other he
was forced to belly land. He was never
injured.
He married a school mate,
Jeanne Fields. They had three chiidren,
Sharon, Michael and Patrick, born in the
mid to late 40's (they are about the same
age as some of us).
After leaving the Air Force,
Carroll experimented with a few other
livelihoods including rough necking in
the oil fields, ready-mix concrete and
chicken ranching. Each of these efforts
were fairly short lived; he didn't like
working in the oil fields, he stopped the
concrete business when he started the
chicken ranch and the chicken ranch was
finished when he lost 40,000 of his
70,000 chickens in just 3 days.
(Newcastle Disease, ed.)
In 1952, he first tried what
became his main interest in life - road
racing - when a friend let Carroll drive
his MG to a track in Norman, Oklahoma.
They drove the MG to the race course and
then on to victory in the race - A career
was launched.
In 1954, Carroll won several
Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) races.
As a result, he was chosen to be part of
the AMERICAN race team to compete against
the Argentineans. Carroll Shelby drove a
Cadillac powered Allard in this event.
The combination of an American V8 in a
sports car proved to be very much to
Carroll's liking. He drove very well and
won the event. He so impressed the Aston
Martin factory team (at that time Aston
Martin was one of the fastest and most
successful sports cars in the world),
they made him the offer to become a
driver on their factory race team.
Carroll drove very well for
the Aston Martin team, but John Wyer saw
some "rough edges" which he
sought to smooth out. He taught Carroll
to drive more smoothly and that "no
wild, crazy-driving fool gets to the
top". Both the concept of a Cadillac
Allard and John Wyer were to play a
significant role in Carroll's later
career.
Carroll was quoted in a 1957
Sports Illustrated article; "You
know, when I'm driving a racing car I
feel that I don't have a problem in the
world. I haven't even tried to analyze
why I do it. I guess there is just
something there - a certain
challenge".
That "certain
challenge" led Carroll Shelby to
completely blitz the 1957 SCCA season
winning 40 races and losing only 6, an
incredible 87% win ratio. In a 1957
interview he said about racing "when
it stops being fun, I'm going to get out
of it". It evidently has not stopped
being fun yet, because he is still deeply
involved in racing today.
What was not revealed in the
1957 interview was that Carroll had been
driving with nitroglycerin tablets under
his tongue to keep the angina pain under
control. His heart problems persisted
which led to his giving up driving in
competition after 1961. It is obvious to
all of us, that his love of racing did
not wane when he stopped driving. Carroll
Shelby knew how to drive cars, how to
make them fast and reliable, and how to
make them win. He merely redirected his
energy from his extremely successful
driving career to most ALL other fields
related to racing.
After 1961, he became the
western distributor for Goodyear racing
tires, he was a contributing editor for
Sports Car Graphic magazine and he ran
his high performance driving school at
Riverside Raceway in California.
Most of all, Carroll wanted
to build his own sports car, a production
American sports car. It had to be fast,
fast enough to be THE fastest sports car,
and fast enough to beat the Ferrari. His
plan was to use a high performance
American motor and marry it with a good
handling British sports car, the same
concept as the Cadillac Allard which he
drove to win the Argentinean challenge.
Carroll learned that AC
Motor Cars, Limited of England was losing
their engine supplier. Here was the car
for his sports car project, now he needed
an engine. He talked to Chevrolet, and
Chevrolet was not interested because
Chevrolet already had the Corvette and
didn't want any competition. Carroll then
talked with Ford which was in process of
building a new family of small block
V8's. Carroll Shelby was very persistent
and eventually got a Ford rep to send him
a pair of engines for "developmental
purposes". The rest is, obviously
HISTORY. Shelby American completed the
first car in 1961 and tested it at
Silverstone race track in England. On
it's first track experience, it ran a
previously unheard of 150 mph on the
straight.
Carroll immediately had the
car shipped back to California where he
began his effort of convincing Ford to
back the project for more than a couple
of engines. The effort began with
convincing Dave Evens, a Ford rep, to
look at the car and at the Silverstone
test films. Dave agreed this was a good
project, and the first letter of
agreement was signed in Feb. 1962. Part
of the agreement called for putting the
first prototype in the New York auto
show. One night, Carroll dreamed of the
car and in the dream the name COBRA came
to him.
He painted the prototype
yellow, put the name Cobra on it, and got
it to the New York auto show on time. The
car was an instant success. Carroll
Shelby had done what no one in
contemporary history had done. He had
built his own racing sports car. This was
not just any sports car, but it became
the worlds fastest production sports car.
The Cobra dominated the SCCA A production
class for years. Though the newest COBRA
is over 30 years old, it is still among
the fastest production cars in the world.
Never being a complacent
person, Carroll Shelby continued his
winning ways by producing another
champion. The GT350 was a production
Mustang based car which was first
introduced in 1965. This car won the B
production championship in it's first
year, and then won the championship again
in 1966. Carroll Shelby had continued his
success with yet another sports car. No
man has done more for the production
muscle car of the 60's than Carroll
Shelby, BUT Carroll was no where near
done producing champions yet !!!!
Carroll joined forces with
John Wyer and began the project with
which Carroll Shelby's name is
synonymous, the GT40. This Ford powered
vehicle was built with the express
purpose of beating Ferrari at LeMans. One
year after the introduction of the GT40
to the racing world, the Ford GT40's
finished LeMans 1st, 2nd and 3rd for one
of the most remarkable racing feats in
all of racing history.
Carroll Shelby ended his
affiliation with Ford Motor Company in
about 1970, approximately concurrent with
Lee Iacocca leaving Ford. He began his
affiliation with the Chrysler Corporation
in the early 80's. Between major auto
manufacturers, he started an incredibly
successful chili company, which he has
sold for "an indecent amount of
money, so much that I can take on any
sumbitch that tries to make a profit
copying the cars ...(the Cobra) and
passing them off as the real thing".
Clearly, his passion for the automotive
racing world has not waned.
In 1990, he was seriously
ill. His heart was simply worn out. In
1991, with very little time left before
his heart stopped working completely, he
had a successful heart transplant. His
heart transplant was so successful, that
he drove the pace car at Indianapolis in
1991. The pace car was the Dodge Viper, a
project with which Carroll Shelby was
affiliated. The Viper has a V10 engine,
is very fast, stops and handles well. It
shares more similarities with the
original Cobra than just the species
relationship of the name, it also, is the
brain child of Carroll Shelby. He also
received a new kidney (from his son,
Michael) in 1996 and is in good health
today.
COBRA, GT350, FORD GT40,
DAYTONA COUPE, as well as GT5OO's,
BOSS Mustangs, Mangustas, Panteras,
Sunbeam Tigers, and Trans-Am Mustangs:
These are all cars which benefited from
direct involvement by Carroll Shelby.
These are cars that helped redefine the
term performance automobile.
Thank you Carroll
Sources,
Sports Illustrated, March 25, 1957
Carroll Shelby, the Gentle Leadfoot,
Kenneth Rudeen
Shelby American Guide, Second Edition;
Richard Kopec, 1982
Carroll Shelby's RACING COBRA,
Dave Friedman and John Christy, 1990
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