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Carroll Hall Shelby, born January 11, 1923, is an American racing and automotive design legend.
Born in Leesburg, Texas, after graduating high school, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, serving in World War II as a flight instructor and test pilot.
Carroll Shelby has had an impressive impact on automotive racing and design over the last 50 years. Starting out amateur, he soon became a driver for Cad-Allard, Aston Martin, Maserati teams during the 1950s and 60s. Following his driving career he opened a high performance driving school and the Shelby-American company. In the shop he designed and built the famed "Cobra" cars, which were derived from an AC chassis and used Ford engines. Shelby went on to help design some of the most successful and beautiful cars of the era: the Ford Mustang, GT40, Shelby GT350, Shelby GT500, and of course the 427 Shelby Cobra. Parting with Ford, Shelby moved on to help develop performance cars with divisions of the two other Big 3 American companies, Dodge, and Oldsmobile. The most memorable of these cars was the Dodge Viper.
In 1991, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Shelby Dodges and Dodge Shelbys
Shelby began working with Dodge at the request of Chrysler Corporation chairman, Lee Iacocca, who had previously been responsible for bringing Shelby to the Ford Mustang. After almost a decade of tuning work, Shelby was part of the team responsible for the Dodge Viper.
The following cars were modified by Shelby, and bore his name, but still sold under the Dodge marque:
The following cars used Shelby-modified parts, but were not overseen by Carroll Shelby:
The following cars were modified and sold as Shelbys:
External link: The Shelby Dodge Pages (http://www.xmission.com/~dempsey/shelby/sheldodg.htm)
Series 1
Shelby's Series 1 roadster used Oldsmobile's 4.0 L L47 Aurora V8, but was poorly supported by the ailing GM division.
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