Racing a Legend

It takes a fascinating man to create captivating cars. Born in 1923 in Leesburg, Texas, Shelby served as an Army Air Corps flight instructor during World War II, then worked as a truck driver, ranch hand, and salesman. He was into chicken ranching when he turned to racing sports cars, starting in 1952 with a humble MG-TC.

To many enthusiasts, the name Carroll Shelby conjures images of a lanky country boy with a thick Texas drawl and a wide "aw shucks" grin beneath a black cowboy hat. This down-home manner was somewhat calculated. In 1953, for example, Shelby was late getting to a race and had no time to change out of his farmer's overalls. Noticing how people reacted, he made the "Texas tuxedo" a sartorial signature.

He might play to crowds, but Shelby was as smart about business as he was about racing and building cars. He was, as one writer put it, "a promoter in the most flattering sense. Like an alchemist, he had the unique ability to combine elements so that their sum becomes greater than the total of their parts."

Shelby raced successfully in the U.S., Europe and Latin America in the mid- to late-Fifties, wheeling Aston Martins, Maseratis, Ferraris, and other sports cars with stellar teammates including Masten Gregory, Dan Gurney, and Phil Hill. He also had a few Formula rides during the 1955 and '58 seasons.

A natural but fierce competitor, Shelby would often steal a quick pre-race snooze, saying "Wake me up when it's time to grid." His high point as a driver came in 1959. Shelby's friendship with John Weyer of Aston Martin led to his being paired with Ray Salvadori in an Aston DBR for that year's LeMans 24 Hours. Carroll and Ray won the always-grueling event outright.

The very next year, a heart condition forced Shelby to retire from driving, but not from working with cars. Settling in Southern California, he became a Goodyear tire distributor and opened America's first performance driving school. Meanwhile, he dreamed of building a pure "sport car" -- trim, light, powerful, and fast enough to beat anything on street or track.

He got his chance in September 1961. Ford had just introduced its revvy "Fairlane 221" small-block V-8, and Shelby heard that England's A.C. Cars was losing the engine supplier for its lithe two-seat Ace roadster.

There are various stories about what happened next, but basically Carroll decided the engine and car were made for each other. He cajoled A.C. into selling him Aces and Ford into supplying engines, only he opted for the more powerful 260-cubic-inch V-8. Thus was born the Cobra in February 1962.

By year's end, Shelby was offering an even faster 289-cid version, built at his small shop in Venice, California. By 1965 he had the brutal 427 Cobra.

By the time the 1965 Ford Mustang debuted, Carroll Shelby and his furiously fast Cobra sports cars were already performance legends. The high-performance machines Shelby would create out of the Mustang were destined to achieve fabled status of their own.

During the Ford Mustang's highly successful initial model year, an even more exciting and capable model premiered at California's Riverside Raceway on January 27, 1965. Though created by Carroll Shelby, the GT-350 was instigated by Lee Iacocca, who wanted a Corvette-beater for Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) B-Production racing. The idea was to give every Mustang a "competition-proved" aura in line with Ford's "Total Performance" racing and ad campaign, then nearing high tide.

Shelby laid down the specifics in the fall of 1964. SCCA required that at least 100 cars be built to qualify as production, and Ford sent that many 2+2 fastbacks to Shelby's small facility in Venice, California, for conversion. The first dozen GT-350s were hand-built by Christmas, the remaining 88 by New Year's Day (a feat that much impressed SCCA officials).

Each GT-350 started as a white fastback supplied with the Hi-Po V-8, four-speed gearbox, a stouter rear axle from the big Galaxie, and no hood, grille, side trim, or wheel covers. Shelby muscled up the engine to 306 horsepower via a "hi-rise" manifold, larger carburetor, free-flow exhaust, and other changes.

Additional component upgrades included Koni adjustable shocks, a bigger front sway bar, rear torque arms (added to lessen axle hop in hard takeoffs), Shelby-cast 6 x 15 alloy wheels, 7.75 x 15 Goodyear Blue Dot performance tires, larger brakes with sintered-metallic friction surfaces, and fast-ratio steering on relocated upper-suspension control arms. A hefty steel tube was added to bridge the front shock towers to lessen body flex in hard cornering.

Shelby installed a fiberglass hood with functional air scoop and competition-style tiedowns and applied Ford-blue racing stripes above the rocker panels and atop the hood, roof, and deck. Inside were three-inch competition seatbelts, mahogany-rim racing steering wheel providing more arm room, and steering-column-mount tachometer and oil-pressure gauge.

To meet racing rules for "sports cars" (defined as two-seaters), the stock rear seat was omitted and the spare tire lashed in its place, though Shelby offered a different bolt-in bench seat as an option.

As planned, there was also a race-ready GT-350R. This used basically the same high-tune 289 as competition Cobras, which meant 340-360 horsepower. A low-restriction side-exit exhaust system helped, as did replacing the front bumper with a fiberglass airdam containing a large central air slot.

Also to save weight, the gearbox got an aluminum case, plastic replaced glass for door and rear windows, and the cockpit was stripped down to a single racing seat, roll bar, and safety harness. Super-duty suspension and tires were naturally included, and a "locker" differential was installed. A few GT-350Rs were built with all-disc brakes and ultra-wide tires under flared fenders.

Like the Cobra, the GT-350 was all business and tough to beat, even in street tune. Racing R-models fulfilled Iaccoca's hopes by running away from Corvettes in the Sports Car Club of America's B-Production class, winning the national championship in 1965, '66, and again in '67. But then Ford and the stock Mustang began changing in ways that Shelby didn't like, and he parted company with Dearborn in 1970.

The street GT-350 was priced at $4547, about $1500 more than a standard V-8 Mustang. A real sizzler, it could storm 0-60 mph in around 6.5 seconds, hit 130-135 mph, and make genuine track-star moves. The R-model was even faster -- and at a nominal $5950 an incredible bargain for a showroom car that could race straight to victory lane.

Though no GT-350 was easy to drive, orders quickly overwhelmed the small Venice shop, prompting the newly formed Shelby American, Inc., to move into two huge hangars at nearby Los Angeles International Airport in the spring of 1965. Model-year production totaled 562, of which an estimated 25 were racing versions.

 

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