I know that Carroll Shelby had nothing to do with motorcycles, and this is a motorcycle accident blog, but there hasn’t been anyone involved in motor sports more interesting than Carroll Shelby. Shelby died this last Thursday in a Dallas hospital. He was one of the world’s longest living heart transplant recipients, having received a heart in June 1990. He was a car racer and one of the most well known names in history as a car developer. When, as a racer in the late1950’s he won Le Mans, he was already suffering with heart problems, and drove the race with nitroglycerin pills under his tongue!!
He developed the well known Shelby Cobra in 1962. He built it to compete against Corvette, and in one year was dominating Corvettes throughout the country. In 2007, an 800 horsepower model of the Cobra made in 1966, once Carroll Shelby’s personal car sold at auction for $5.5 million. This car, 40 years ago, could go 0-60 in just over 3 seconds!
When Ford Motor Co. asked Shelby to design a Mustang (which Shelby called “a secretary car” ) that could compete against the Corvette for young male drivers, they got their money’s worth. He developed the Shelby Mustang that is as popular today as it was when he developed it in the 1960’s. He later was asked by Lee Iacocca, when he was at Chrysler to design the Dodge Viper.
The guy was a genius, and left us all a little better off, every time we see a Shelby Mustang, a Viper, or best of all, a Shelby Cobra!