The East Texas Chicken Farmer Turned Car Builder Tells Us The Cars Bearing His Name Evolved From A Dream
Eighty-two-year-old Carroll Shelby is a very busy man, following a dream he's had since 1952 when he dropped a new Chrysler Hemi into a custom-built hot-rod chassis. Shelby's dream was to build cars. The '62 260 Cobra was the first realization of that dream, thanks to Ford's cooperation. The Cobra would become legendary in its execution and performance worldwide. It is likely the most copied automobile ever.
On the 40th anniversary of his original '65 Shelby Mustang GT350, we refrained from asking the overdone questions, such as how he named that first Shelby Mustang a GT350. The story's been told over and over. It was 350 steps to the garage, perhaps based more in humor than fact.
Prior to the '65 GT350 was Shelby's '62 Cobra with an aluminum body and chassis sourced from AC Cars of England and the new small-block Ford V-8. Prior to the Cobra was Shelby's eight-year career as a race car driver. Highlights include 1956 and 1957 Sports Car Illustrated Driver Of The Year, and a victory at LeMans in 1959 driving an Aston-Martin. Shelby was a proven commodity in racing. He knew cars, and he knew how to drive them.
A seldom-mentioned piece of Shelby history is that he actually courted Chevrolet first. Carroll explained, "I built three Corvettes in 1958 in Italy. Ed Cole at Chevrolet gave me three Corvettes, and I had them just about finished with aluminum bodies, a lot lighter than the present fiberglass Corvette."
GM turned Shelby down for engines during his efforts to build the Cobra. Had Chevrolet accommodated Shelby, there may have been no Cobra, or the Cobra might have been Chevy powered. It could have changed the history books completely. Chevrolet already had a sports car in its Corvette, thank you very much. Chief Corvette Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov could do fine without the help of some Texas sports car driver turned car manufacturer named Carroll Shelby.
Shelby recalls, "I was working with GM, and it took me two years to put my deal together with Ford." Chevrolet would rue the day it turned down Shelby. Shelby had used "getting around Europe" wisely to learn how to build a hot sports car. Number one, he started with a lightweight chassis. Weighing less than 2,000 pounds, the Cobra would be V-8-powered, steamrolling the Corvette in SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) A-production road racing, then later beating the best sports cars (Ferrari had been the perennial champion) in Europe in endurance road racing. The Cobra would hand Chevrolet and Ferrari their respective posteriors in fierce competition around the world. The Cobra nameplate swiftly became synonymous with outrageous performance. Ford benefited mightily because the Cobra was Ford-powered. The body and chassis were from AC Cars in England. Shelby was the manufacturer.
The GT 350 StoryLee Iacocca, widely regarded as the father of the Mustang, and in 1964, vice-president and general manager of Ford Division, called upon his friend Carroll Shelby to give the new Mustang a performance image. The venue was racing, naturally, considering Ford had started one of the most ambitious factory racing programs in history in the summer of 1962. It was called Total Performance.
Shelby's mission in August 1964 was to build a hot Mustang to compete in SCCA B-production road racing. It was known as the Cobra Mustang project. He began by asking the SCCA just what it would take for the Mustang to be classified in its rulebook as a sports car. First, the Mustang would have to be a two-seater. The new Mustang fastback had just joined the line-up as a 2+2, short for two seats up front and two in the back. All Shelby had to do was pull the rear seat and insert a fiberglass tray. Voila! The two-seat Shelby Mustang GT350 was born.