RIP Carroll Shelby

Awwwwww, man that sucks! A friend of mine has a 65 Mustang that he carefully built into a Shelby GT 350 with original parts.




Rumor had it that if you were at a car show and Carroll walked by, upon inspection, he could officially sign it off as an authentic Shelby. Value would immediately rise from $20K-$40K to over $100-$150K! We'd look for him every time we were at Hot August Nights.

RIP Carroll Shelby

 

He will be missed.

 

Carroll Shelby also wrote several modification and performance books that got down to the nitty gritty of building a performance car. He took a practical engineering approach in his books instead of the clueless go buy whatever brand name parts that so many take.

He will be missed

 

He also kicked nice person in the Chili Dept!
I love a good bowl of chili, Shelbys rocks!
My dream car was/still is a GT350.
All it takes is money!
RIP Carroll, you are of the good ole boys!

 

i have always thought the cobra was the most beautiful car ever designed.

 

Shelby then:

And now:

 

Little bit of Shelby appreciation from across the pond:

 

My dad's friend had a Cobra 427 before he passed away and it was sold at auction. Having met the guy when I was 15, I love Shelby's and the tech that goes into making them go fast.

 

I met him in 1984, when he was coming back from the U.K. at the then mew Bradley Terminal at LAX. I was them working for U.S. Immigration, Customs, and Agricultual inspections when he arrived at my inspection booth.

The jacket that he was wearing caught my eye. I didn't recognize who he was. I asked him what the jacket was made of. He said it was "Cobra" snakeskin. I was concerned that it was prohibited for entry into the US under the Endangered Sprcies Act.

He said that he had a car called the "Cobra." Finally, I knew what he was talking about. He gave me his business card and a Shelby Key chain.

That was nice.

 

Cool!

 

I was a Driver at the Barrett Jackson Auction in Scottsdale AZ when Carroll Shelby sold his AC Cobra Super Snake for $5 million to Ron Pratt one of the Biggest Car Collectors in North America. I got the opportunity to sit in the drivers seat. I was shocked to find a automatic with the 1960's Plastic gear selector. I guess with twin paxton super chargers and all that horsepower, Carroll wanted to not have to deal with shifting? RIP Carroll.

 

Don't forget the mid 80s when he was converting plain old fwd Mopars to cars that out ran Mustangs! The 84 Horizon in my avatar was ordered from the factory with the Shelby HO carb motor....the year before the turbo motors came out in the same chassis. My Horizon was one of only 84 made....someone at Chrysler figured out that the 120+ mph of the cars was higher than the 113 mph rating of the tires. The HO Horizons had NO visual clues at all, not like the GLH that had black out trim, different interiors, 15 inch speed rated tires on distinctive rims, spoilers, and side rockers. Not a single decal. My car was the only one built with no AC and radio delete, ordered that way since I knew I'd be drag racing it. It ran 15.8, that was a half second quicker than the GLH carbbed cars and evens up with the turbo GLH....mainly due to being 200 lbs less and I used 20" slicks to basically change the gear ratio.