June 4, 2013 • 42 mins
Carroll Shelby is a racing legend, but how did he get started? What made him such a larger-than-life figure, and what role did he play in the creation of the Shelby Cobra? Join Scott and Ben as they explore the life and work of Carroll Shelby.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house Stuff Works dot Com. All right,
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Ben and I'm Ben Boland,
and we're again we're revisiting topic. I guess right, yes, sir,
Carol Shelby. But this time we're going to, uh, we're
(00:23):
gonna specifically focus on Carol Shelby the man himself. Right
right in our earlier episode, which listeners can check out
for free out iTunes shameless plug, you can hear us
delving into Shelby's work with the Cobra four. Uh. This
podcast is going to be a little bit different because
(00:44):
it occurred to you and I a few weeks ago that,
for two guys who mentioned Carol Shelby so often in
other shows, we have yet to do a show actually
about this guy. Yeah, I guess more of a biography piece. Really,
let's just dive right in, how about that? And a
little bit of it will be repeat from what we've
(01:05):
said before, but we're going to add an awful lot
of material to this, so, um, you know, pay attention
here and there's some there's some good stuff coming at
the end too, I promise, Yes, we always have its wiss. Alright,
So here's the man himself, born way back in right
January eleventh, Leesburg, Texas. Uh. You may hear him refer
to sometimes uh as the world's most famous failed chicken farmer. Yeah,
(01:30):
I've ever heard that one, You know what, I've never
heard that, But but I didn't know he was a
chicken farmer. And that's that make comes a surprise to
a lot of people, because this is the the early
days of the sport really, Um, I know, it's still
like we're talking like the mid fifties when his driving
career really kicked off. Early days of racing, not chicken farming.
Yeah yeah, yeah, chicken farming has been around a long
long time. Early days of sports car racing, I guess. Um,
(01:53):
and that was mid fifties, I guess. And there were
really no big contracts to be had, no million dollar
deals to be made. Um. It really wasn't a full
time job exactly. So you know, you were a driver
on the weekend, and then during the week you still well,
I guess you kept your day job, right, and uh,
and he's a he just happened to be a chicken
(02:14):
farmer from East Texas that had this knack for driving
cars fast, and what a knack he had, Scott, I
think we have. Do you have a little bit about
some of his early racing career. I do. As a
matter of fact. He's a he was a driver for
several teams uh sports cars in the nineteen fifties, and
I'll just listen them here. I think he began as
a hobbyist in nineteen Okay, I'd buy that. Yeah, so
(02:36):
mid fifties though he was he was racing for uh,
you know, I'm sure that through that he gained notoriety.
UM teams took notice or he applied and said he
I'd like to drive for you guys, and he said, well,
let's see what you can do. And um. He drove
for cad Allard, he drove for Aston Martin, Maserati, Austin Healy,
for Donald Healy himself, by the way, which is really cool. Yeah,
(02:57):
it's prestigious. Ferrari was one that he did. He used
a Ferrari in a hill climb competition in Mount Washington.
I believe very successful. In fact, so successful that Aston
Martin decided to pick him up as a as a
driver for the twenty four hours of Lama. Yes, and
this was after his performance with Aston Martin, uh at
(03:20):
Sea Break. So he has earned his stripes by this time.
And I think it was in fifty four he was
at Sea Bring and so it was a little later
he was at Lama and uh just three years after
that he's out of the chicken raising business, Scott and
he founds Carol Shelby sports Cars. Yeah, you know what
(03:41):
I need to go back just one this quick second,
because in fifty nine this is the big point here.
Oh yeah, this is the big switch. In fifty nine
he actually he won the twenty four Hours of Lama
with Aston Martin and that was probably what they call
maybe the pinnacle of his racing career. Um. Now, another
thing is that he was also a sports sports car
illustrated as Driver the Year from fifty nineteen fifty six
(04:01):
and nineteen fifty seven. Um, he was let's see one
more quick thing here. Um. Oh, the ben keep going.
I okay, there's one more thing that I needed to mention,
and I just it's on the tip of my tongue. Okay, Well,
what we'll do is talk a little bit up to
his last one of his last races. I've got it mine,
(04:22):
I'm gonna interrupt you. No go, yeah, no problem. He's
a Formula one driver, and you know what, the reason
that I don't didn't get that right way is he's
he just to me, he didn't. That really wasn't something
that was touted later in his life that he was.
He had this Formula one career very short lived. It
was nineteen fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine. I don't think
he want any races, didn't win any championships anything like that.
(04:43):
But um, there's Formula one thing about him that was
kind of like, to me an unknown. I had always thought,
you know, associated him with sports cars and then of
course later with building cars. Like we talked like you
just mentioned. It's a it's a deep cut. And this
is a real quick sidebar before we get to another
plot twist. For anyone who is on Facebook, you can
(05:05):
go to the Carol Shelby official fan page, which I
am a fan of in my personal life, and every
week they have some Shelby trivia. So this might be
one of those things we might be giving people ammunition
for the trivia. Pay attention. The prize is a T shirt.
The whole T shirt well, you know, what Ben, that's
(05:25):
still pretty cool. I I I'd still like to win
something like that, you know, trivia contest. Plus if we're
giving him all the animal they need and why not, Yeah,
I don't know why I said that, though they'd only
get part of a T shirt. Okay, But this leads
us to nineteen six, right, Scott, And this is where
Shelby is preparing to raise a Maserati two. Yeah, that's right.
And uh and he's still in the sports car world
(05:47):
and uh and and then it hits. It hits. A
month later he starts to have some chest pains. Yeah. Yeah,
so this is uh, this is it like a lifelong
thing for him. I mean, ever since he was a
little kid, he had been having uh art issues and like,
I think it was like a leaky valve I think
is what it was. And um so even later in
his career he was actually using um nitroglycerin pills and
(06:10):
he just had was having lots of trouble with his
heart and uh it just by nineteen sixty he got
to the point where it disrupted his career and of
his driving enough rather that it was something that made
driving impossible for him as a profession, Right, he was
diagnosed with angina pectoris. This heart condition effectively ended his career,
(06:33):
at least as we'll see in the professional racing aspect. Now, Scott,
did you look. I've really listened to our earlier show
under and there's a really cool point that you had
made where we're talking about I think we do touch
on his His heart condition let him out of the
racing world. A lot of people in that rarefied field
(06:58):
would be just crushed, and I'm sure he was. But
instead of just giving up the ghosts entirely, he decided
to come back and launch a new career. Yeah, as
a as a constructor, as a builder. And this all
comes from his days in the sports car of course.
You know, when he was driving, he was noticing other
vehicles that were out there, and he took note of
(07:19):
a of a vehicle from a company, um A C Cars, right,
a C Yes specific model car called the Bristol. And uh,
that's the one that we here in the States referred
to as the Cobra um and the body that everybody,
I mean, i think everybody knows exactly what an AC
Cobra looks like. Right. So the Bristol comes when he
(07:41):
puts a Ford V eight into this and and the
Bristol a pretty small sports came. It wasn't it wasn't
anything exceptionally overpowered or anything in its day. But he
noted that, you know, this is the kind of look
and size and type of car that I want to
I want to eventually build. So what he did was
he stuffed a giant Ford V eight under the hood.
And by giant, I mean the first one was like
(08:03):
a two sixty. And then they decided, well, it's maybe
not enough. Let's jump up to two eight nine. And
then maybe that wasn't enough, so he jumps up again.
And we'll talk about that later. But um, he did
start just cramming these big Ford V eight engines under
the hood of these bristles, and of course, you know,
started winning races, and Ford takes notice, says, you know what,
maybe you're doing something right here that we'd like to
(08:25):
kind of latch onto. How about you work with Ford
and we create um, you know, we'll let you build
the the a C Cobra as you call it here
in the States. Well, we want a Ford hot rod, Yeah,
we want we want to put the Ford brand on it.
So we're gonna back this and not only we're gonna
help you build the a C Cobra, we're also going
to uh let you play around with our new car,
(08:45):
the Mustang, Right, and this results in the nine Shelby GT.
Three and uh, that's a beast. I want to talk
a little bit though about some of the stuff, Uh,
if we're okay with going back just a bit, I
want to talk about some of the stuff he was doing,
um while while this other thing was happening, while this
(09:06):
relationship was Ford was growing. Uh. He had a new
outfit at the time called Shelby American, which which we're
gonna delve into a little bit in the next few minutes.
It's still around. Yeah, it's spoiler alert. And uh. Their
racing program with Cobra began in nineteen sixty two, so
(09:26):
it didn't finish its first race, got a DNF in
October sixty two, but in sixty three, two of his
drivers took first and second at Riverside. Uh. And this
begins a very I guess, a mutually beneficial relationship that
Carol Shelby has with drivers because unlike some other owners, right,
(09:50):
he knows exactly experientially what's happening to these drivers what
their concerns should be. And this sort of leadership shows
because as he begins the Daytona Cobra coop project in
Laman and as Shelby American and the Cobra's UH when
the GT class and they placed fourth overall in Laman. Um,
(10:15):
that all happened as he was beginning to go with Ford.
What I guess, what I'm trying to say is this
guy is doing a lot of stuff and when he
got the when when Ford saw what he was doing,
after the beginning of their relationship, Ford gives Shelby the
GT forty. Yeah, that's really cool because you know he
(10:36):
won in fifty nine in UH in a Aston Martin
and he won in a car called the DBR one.
In the DBR one, there's a picture of it, Ben,
I'm showing to you right now, and that is a
that's a sexy looking carte. That is a nice looking car.
It's not him behind the wheel and this shot here,
but that is a it's exactly what you would think
of British sports car from the late fifties would look
(10:58):
like it's gorgeous. And um, not only did Ford say,
you know, like we trust you so much, we're gonna
give you this this new g T forty platform and
play around with because um. It was nineteen sixty six
and nineteen sixty seven that Shelby returned UM as team
owner with Team Shelby American Inc. Uh with the you know,
a couple of g T fouries and he won in
(11:18):
sixty six sixty seven, and he listened to the driver's
ben for that in in sixty six for the for
the Mark to one of the drivers was Chris and
non I'm on rather and the next driver in that
same car, Bruce McLaren. Really yeah, Bruce McLaren drove for
Carol Shelby in nineteen sixty six, and then in nineteen
sixty seven another couple of big names UM in the
(11:40):
Mark four UH, Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt. So
some big names were behind the you know and Carol
Shelby of course big names on this team in sixty
six and sixty seven. But but you know, those have
to be I think he probably would, you know, cherish
his his outright victory as a driver more than he
would as a team owner. But still a victory, you know,
(12:02):
two times in a row in this new platform from Ford,
which is a really cool platform, by the way. Um,
we both love the GT forty. Um, that's uh, that's
gotta be just an amazing achievement, something that you know,
you're really that real, live that in your memory over
and over and over the rest of your life. And uh,
some of the executives at Ford were probably doing the
(12:24):
same thing at the time because he helped them with
one of their primary goals, which is beating Ferrari. You
gotta beat the pants off of Ferrari because remember there
was that little bit of that scourage between any Yeah,
a little bit of a little tension, that's maybe the
best word for it. Remember when Ford is gonna buy
Ferrari and they said, last minute backed out of the deal,
(12:46):
and then Ford said, well take this, here's GT forty
when you be the crosshom Yeah exactly. I don't know
what which Ford executive that was. Yeah, I think I
have a have a guess. All right it so um
but but all right, So we talked about the the
Shelby American Inc. I do want to say one quick
(13:06):
thing before we continue on here. Um, that Shelby American Inc.
It's still around, obviously, they've been around since sixty two. Um.
They don't just do covers and Mustangs and things like that.
They also have a whole line of vehicles. If you
go to their website now, you'll find that they have
Mustang based cars. They have, um, the Shelby Raptor, which
is a Ford truck. Of course. Um, they have a focus,
(13:28):
they have the Cobra vehicles. Of course, they have a shell.
They still have a Shelby g T forty that you
could buy. Um. And then there's also the Shelby Daytona Coupe,
which is a really cool cars. So UM worthwhile to
look into Shelby American Inc. Still and and see what
they're doing because they are continuing to sell vehicles. UM.
And I guess we should say at this point that,
(13:49):
oh man, where do we go from here? Because it's
not limited to Ford, It's not limited to There's there's
other stuff I want to talk about. There's the Bristol
cars that you know we did. We did a pretty
good job of covering the history of wristle cars in
the in the first podcast. As with the Cobra, you
may want to look back at that. Well, I've got
some stuff we we have some other things that he
did that are not necessarily related as much to his
(14:14):
race or his career as a racer. Um, he begins
to get he begins to become a media personality, kind
of a face of racing in the late sixties going
to the seventies. Uh, he's the kind of guy that
you would see hanging out. He always always Uh, I'm
(14:34):
gonna I'm gonna go ahead and say this, this stereotypical
media portrayal of a straight shooting tell it like it is.
Texan didn't mence his words. He had that black hat
on all the time. I had that black hat on
all the time. You know, I have no room to
talk with that one. And uh, he had um, yeah, charisma. Yeah,
he had his Carol Shelby jacket on him usually on
(14:55):
zipped about mid chest, you know. And uh, he had
just kind of a well the big sideburns and everything,
and he just looked the part of the the sports racer,
you know, team leaders. You know, He's just he was
a hands on guy. Of course. Um that's why you
know the j A. J. Foy kind of reminds me
of that, and that he was a hands on guy
as well, Like he would jump out of the car
(15:17):
and fix it during the race. And so that was
the kind of guy A. J. Foyt was, And I
bet he learned a lot of that working with Carol
Shelby back in the you know, the early to mid sixties.
So um, yeah, Oh it's kind of the background of
this guy. He's you're right, stereotypical on the sidelines, you know,
depiction of the the racing Texan. Uh, little car, big engine.
(15:39):
He would say that, and he had a way with words.
But just for an example, uh, he he starts holding
these Texas chili cookoffs in the nine eight and become
surprisingly uh well known for these takeoff you know. Um.
And it's funny because if you read some of the
(16:00):
articles written about him in retrospect, there are a lot
of people who say that some of that was to
enhance uh, the property value of some land he owned.
All could be you know that he also still well,
I mean his estate now owns. There's a Carol Shelby's
original Texas brand chili that you can buy right now. Um.
(16:21):
It's actually it's a chili kit seasoning packets that time
till you can buy. But um, there's like two recipes,
one for meat, one for chicken. He's got the whole
thing figured out. But yeah, it's funny. These these Texas
chili cookoffs became a big deal at the race tracks,
right and uh and for whatever reason, they just kind
of hung around for I mean decades, right, I mean
he's doing this stuff for a long long time because
(16:43):
chili's delicious, dude. Yeah, I know it'solutely right, Yeah, perfect thing.
And I mean that are like, seriously, the Shelby chili
kits are not that bad. I think they're pretty good.
I've never had one. Yeah, no, I'm gonna have to
gonna have to search for one here. And i'd say,
go traditional. Okay, I'm getting side, but you know, don't
dive right into chicken. Try the other cooking with Benn
(17:04):
and Scott. All right, so let's get back to Uh,
how about we talked about Bristol cars a little bit, Yeah,
a tiny little bit and then um man or do
we want to tell you what? I'm gonna reverse that
decision right now because I want to I want to
leave some of the There's one particular car that I
want to talk about at the end of the podcast
that I know we touched on it before, but it
warrants a message. The message again, Well, hey, let's let's
(17:26):
just hang out before we I feel like we have
so much stuff that we want to say that we're
we need to be careful not to throw it in
willy nilly. So let's take a let's take a break. No,
if you could play some kind of relaxing music for
us here, Yeah, there we go. That's pretty good. Feel
better now? Al right, So you know we mentioned that
it's not you know, his his career wasn't really limited
(17:48):
to just Ford, right right, Yeah, you worked with some
other he did. He worked with in other companies and
the way that this comes about, and I don't know
if a lot of people will will draw this connection,
but he ended up doing a lot of cars for Dodge.
He worked with Chrysler back in starting in their early eighties. Yeah,
actually way through like maybe I want to say, two
thousand and ten eleven, something like that. Yeah, I've got
(18:09):
some info in that. And what's that In two lee
Ia Coca was running Chrysler and they really needed to
according to Io Coca, they really needed to get some
street cred with the performance buyers. And so that's when
they get Shelby in because you know, at this point
it's a D two. At this point, Shelby's opinion can
(18:32):
count as a gold standard. There's a lot of people.
What was the name of his company was the first one,
the American inc um So so twenty years after that.
Now you hit the nail right on the head bed
when I when you mentioned lee Ia Coca. Do you
know what the connection is there between I Coca and
Shelby from years years past? I don't what is it.
I Coca worked at Ford as a designer at one point,
(18:54):
but he worked with the line team that that created
the Ford Mustang, the Ford Escort, the Incoln Continental, you know,
the the resurgence of the Mercury brand. Um So I
Coco was was instrumental in the Ford Mustang project, uh
years and years prior, back in the mid you know,
early sixties. Rather um So I A Coca you know
later said when he's working with Chrysler as as head
(19:16):
of Chrysler um he says, you know who we need
here to really spice things up as we need Carol Shelby.
Because I worked with with that guy. He was loose
cannon back in the day. But let's see what he's
like now. And UM, I don't know it just it
seems like it's a It makes perfect sense when you
think about it that way. UM. So he brings him
on and he says, you know, we've got this line
of Dodge cars that we want you to look at,
(19:37):
and UM, you know, what can you do? Yeah. One
of the things he does, which I thought was interesting,
he is at this point he is becoming his own brand,
or he has already become his own brand arguably. So
he puts his name with the Dodge Shelby charger. Uh.
That's one. He's on the Dodge OMNI g L h
(19:58):
uh and other Chrysler UH cars. Yeah, lots of them.
But the thing is he UM, there's a couple of
different ways to group this. There are Dodged vehicles that
you know, bore the Shelby name, which you mentioned, a
couple of the OMNIGL H and all those. Um. Also
there's some that use Shelby parts but they weren't necessarily
his projects, and that they used performance upgrades from his company. UM.
(20:23):
And then there were some low production numbers that were
actually UM or low production vehicles rather low number production
UH that were actually built at Shelby's Whittier, California plant
and then sold as Shelby cars. So, um, you know,
and we're talking about cars where they may build you know,
like five hundred of them at most or something like that.
That was that was Those are some of the really
(20:45):
really cool cars to me, I think maybe the best
ones the ones that have plaques on the on the dash,
you know that say this is car number four fifteen,
UM one quick side out on the g l H.
Because this is the car that I think is kind
of it's been forgotten in time, but it was really
cool at the time. It slipped through the cracks. Yeah,
do you remember seeing these omni g l H cars
(21:06):
on the road. I remember seeing photographs all right now
these were these were from nineteen six and uh, the
original name was supposed to be the Coyote, was going
to be the Omnique Coyote or something like that, Johnny Coyote.
Carol Shelby chose the initials g l H, which did
standford goes like hell, and you know that was kind
(21:28):
of the uh it was the legend. Yeah, but it's true.
It really did happen that way, and it was just
really a carryover from like the eighty three Shelby charger
that you mentioned. A lot of the parts carried over
into the Omni, which was a smaller and that smaller.
It was just a different shape body, hatchback, real real small. UM.
Then five they had the g l H turbo. Then
(21:48):
they had the g l H S which was the
final I guess, the final five hundred of the turbo run. Uh.
And these are the ones that that Shelby took back
to his office modified. All of them were black. All
of them. UM had a Shelby e c U. They
had UM extra boost, they had performance you know, suspension kits,
they had UM of course, interiors were different, intercooler, UM,
(22:13):
just all kinds of stuff. They know, lots of upgrades, uh,
full you know, full performance package things you know, on
this on this whole vehicle. UM. And they had these
these dash plates of course that I mentioned before with
the number plates, which makes them kind of cool as well.
So you can still find those around there. There's still
something that will pop up here and there for sale.
I bet a lot of them have a lot of
(22:33):
wear and tear on them, but UM, I don't know.
It's kind of a neat car. If you haven't really
seen a Dodge Omni g l H, take a look
at it, because even for the mid what is that
mid six, mid eighties rather, Um, that's kind of like
the early days of the street performance tuner type vehicle. Yeah,
it's kind of a blast from the past in some ways. Uh.
(22:54):
Shelby also helped develop the Viper. Yes, that's a big one.
That's a huge Yeah. And we just talked about the
pace car, right, Oh, yeah, we should talk about well,
the pace car he drove twice, one of them, one
of them this this is hard to believe, he drove
in nine seven. Now, remember he's working with Chrysler from
the early eighties on. So here's this, you know, this legend. Uh,
(23:16):
they haven't drive the pace car for the N five
and nine eight seven, which happened to be the chrysto
Le Baron, which is kind of hard to imagine now
at this point looking back, but it was, and uh
of course Shelby drove it. Um. And then he was
asked back to be a driver again when they used
the Dodge Viper RT ten, which was the concept at
(23:36):
the time. Um, and it was supposed to be then
This is the little twist of this one. Was supposed
to be Uh, the the stealth vehicle is supposed to Dodge.
Stealth was supposed to be the car, but it was
a Japanese built car, and the U a W, the
United Autowork Union Workers, UM, they threw a fit over
that and said, you can't have a Japanese built car
(23:57):
be the pace car for the ND five hundred. Um,
what else have you got? And they brought out the
Dodge I'm sorry, Yeah, the Dodge Viper r T ten
concept car which Carol Shelby. Shelby a Gain drove and
as we've mentioned in the earlier podcast on pace cars
that you alluded to, Uh, the in D five hundred
(24:18):
races always used American made vehicles and the time probably
still will continue, I would think. So. I don't think
that tradition is going to change. Now we need to
start threading in a little bit of foreshadowing at this
point in this Shelby story. You know, it was Maye
right where he's pacing in the Viper. The previous year,
(24:40):
in June of n he had a heart transplant. Yeah, yeah,
he had to go through, um, the heart transplant, which
of course saved his life obviously, I mean, and it
kept going for a long long time. I mean, um man,
I mean that's a big deal for him. I mean
he he had suffered with this since since he was
seven years old, all the way through and until nineteen ninety,
(25:01):
which is what seventies some years old. And it inspired
him in his survival. I bet it did. Yeah, Yeah,
it inspired him to help others, right and uh, and
he did found a charity which is called the Carol
Shelby Foundation. And I think that the mission of this
foundation is, uh is noble. There's no other way to
(25:23):
say it. It funds heart transplants for children, correct, Yeah,
and uh and kidney issues as well. Um. But but
it does fund it helps out children, uh and families
and children that have um, you know, additional expenses due
to medical costs. So you know, this is a You're right,
it's a it's a very very good cause. And it's
(25:43):
still around obviously. UM. But it's been around since nineteen one.
He founded it in nineteen because he was inspired by
you know, the the the the help that he received
in the in the medical field when he needed it most. Right.
And the part you mentioned about kidneys. That's are important
as well because in nine six, his son Michael donates
(26:04):
a kidney to Carol Shelby. Oh no kidny. I didn't
know because he had kidney issues. But he's working the
entire time because in nine seven he's partnering with Oldsmobile
on the Shelby Series one car. Incredible. Yeah, yeah, I
had got some fight in him. I have some notes
about the Series one, but I think I want to
(26:24):
skip that for now. Okay, and let's um, let's move
back into maybe some Bristol car stuff he wants. How
about we we talked about, you know, leading up to
the um we'll lead up to the sixty six Shelby
because um, I think that you know, we we talked
about the A C. Bristol cars, as I mentioned in
the it was in April of two thousand eleven podcast,
(26:48):
and we talked about the Mark one Mark two, which
were the two six nine by nine. Ben. This is
this is amazing. He was put in four seven engines
in in these A C, A C bodies, these a
C Bristol bodies, UM calling them cover of course, and
the maybe the one term that comes up most is
(27:09):
this is a mean car I mean, that's probably the best.
The best description of this thing is it's the it's
the meanest street car you'll ever drive, the right. Um. Now,
there are a couple of versions of this we talked about.
Most of them were actually and this will surprise a
lot of people, but the four twenty and most of
them were actually fight the fights which are still badged
(27:31):
is four seven's were the street car version of the
four seven, and the four twenty seven's that were truly
four twenty seven's that had an actual four twenty seven displacement.
Those were the race engines, and those are the ones
been that are the that that are described as the
mean I mean not only but also the four twenty
seven racing engines. They were like the they were much
(27:54):
much stronger. Yeah, I've got a great quotation from Shelby
himself about this. Sure. Uh. When I built the dual
supercharge Cobra in n I wanted it to be the fastest,
meanest car on the road, just like you said, Scott.
Forty years later, says Shelby, it will still kick the
tail about out of just about anything in the world.
(28:15):
It's the fastest street legal Cobra I've ever owned and
he estimated the zero to sixty mph there at a
little over three seconds. All right, so the man, that's
amazing street legal car. That's incredible. And that's that. Now, Okay,
when we're talking about the which is the street version,
these are these are sc cars which are semi competition cars.
(28:37):
Um the the other version which is a true four
seven and the race engine that's a full competition car,
and uh, and very few of those remain. This is
the kind. This is the one that has the forty
two gallon fuel cell in the back. It's an enormous,
enormous fuel sell on the back. But um man, what
a car. And that wasn't the top end either. There
(28:59):
was one more than he built. He only built two.
Are we talking? It's super scot you know what, it's
time to talk about the super Snake because I've been
dying to get to this the whole time. But I know,
I know we covered it quite a bit and the
other one, but I still just I just want to
quickly talk about it because it's so cool. So what
makes it different? Then I'll set you up. Well, what
makes it different is it's it's uh, it's what is it? Twins?
(29:20):
Twins supercharged, so it's got twin superchargers and overhead valve
eight zero to sixty time is again it's UM zero
to sixty and three point two seconds, and that's in
nineteen sixty six. Been Oh my gosh, Yeah, I accidentally
let the cat out of the bags. Really because that quotation,
you guys, that quotation is shall be talking about. That's okay,
(29:44):
that's all right, don't worry about it all because you
know what, the other ones are pretty darn close to that. Yeah,
but they're well not that close. But this is the
horsepower beast that we we talked about. Bill Cosby owning
it for what one day, yeah, one day, and then
he sold it to and it was just too much
power for him too. He was too scared to drive
it and he was literally too scared to to keep
(30:07):
the car. Um. It then sold to uh oh man,
this is one of only two. Remember he there's Carol
Shelby who owned one, who built it for himself, and
then he built one for Bill Cosby, who was a
friend of his at the time, UM said, and a
car enthusiast. Obviously, UM said it was too much car
for him, so he sold it there he gave it
back to Carol Shelby. They sold it to another guy
(30:30):
who unfortunately the guy drove it out. This thing is
a monster. The guy drove it off a cliff and
into the Pacific Ocean and died. His name is Tony
Tony Tony Maxie, I think was his name. And uh,
then then it was actually it was. It was bought
by somebody, fully restored, and then sold again. And there's
(30:53):
a guy named and I heard somewhere that that Bill
Cosby said that it's now owned by another guy, another entertainer, right. Um,
his name is Jimmy Jimmy Webb, I think, and he's
an American songwriter, composer, singer. But Jimmy Webb is now
in possession of the car that Bill Cosby once owned
for one day, that was driven off a cliff into
(31:15):
the Pacific Ocean killed its owner. Then it was restored
and now Jimmy this uh, Jimmy Webb owns this car again.
And then of course there's the original that that shall
be owned, which I don't know if that's the one
that is that the auction vehicle, the one that got
the five point five million auction prices. I mean Ben,
I tell you, like, I was so excited to talk
about this car again. And I know that it's a
(31:36):
little bit of a rehash of what we talked about
just a little bit. But man, there's uh, there's so
much about the Super Snake from those days that that
is worthwhile mentioning. And they still continue to this day.
Um at at um uh might keep thinking of the
name the the Shelby American Inc. They still continue to
(31:56):
build cars that they call Super Snake. Yeah, but they're
not the original Super Snakes, I mean one of those
two know, but they do. And boy, one more thing
here that I have to mention about about Super Snake
is that recently hot Rod Magazine did this this comparison.
It was a really cool comparison. It was between a
(32:17):
four seven Cobra and a two thousand and eleven Super
Snake that was created or constructed by Shelby American Inc.
Which they're still doing to this day. But this is
a two thousand eleven example. Um Now, regarding the four
seven Cobra, they called it the baddest, nastiest, just meanest
car that's ever been driven on their and their in
(32:39):
their competition and their in their comparisons. UM, it's it
was extremely rare car. Um, it's just a really raw
car as well. They said that it was just like,
you know, the the bare elements of a car. Really,
I mean, it was just the meanest thing. UM loads
of power on demand. And and get this, this is
the five and fifty horsepower version. It's not the eight
(33:00):
hundred horse power version that we had just mentioned. You know. Yeah,
the super Snake of the Cobra so and it waited
something like two thousand, four and sixty pounds, right. Well,
then they have this, uh, this two thousand eleven Shelby
Super Snake, which is a Mustang based car that that,
of course Carol Shelby's company makes, UM seven hundred and
fifty horsepower band and this thing, it's a five point
(33:22):
four Leader Supercharge V eight and it waves about three
thousand fifty pounds, so it's quite a bit more. You know,
it's a lot heavier because they than the Cobra. UM. Now,
Carol Shelby himself in this in this comparison, because he
was interviewed during this he said about that five point
four Leader engine that that's the finest engine that's ever
been built in an American and American car or rather
(33:44):
in America. Uh that that five point four leader um
supercharge engine. So he was really really happy about it.
And he said, for a long long time why they
waited to build this super Snake was because for a
long time they were limited to about five horse power.
That they change in some things around it, and Carol Shelby,
they did what they had to do to make it
work and they got the thing up to like seven
(34:06):
fifty horsepower. Something that would be you know, a worthy
I guess of the Super Snake name, because they don't
just put the Super Sake Snake name on anything, right.
I mean, that's something that that Carol Shelby takes pretty seriously.
So he hangs onto that until you know, they get
up to about seven fifty UM. But it's just to
give an idea now that he said it was ungodly fast.
(34:26):
The guy that drove this thing. Um, it just says
power when you need it. It's it's just like a
stock Mustang when you don't need it. But any other
time it competes well with the four seven Cobra. So um,
there is a modern version that you can get your
hands on out there because you can't get one of
these ultra rare four seven cobras um or you know,
a kick card version of it. If you can't get
an original, Um, there's something modern out there that you
(34:49):
can get from Shelby American Inc. That will sort of
maybe hold you over a little bit. Now, Scott, at
this point, before we wrap up anything, we need to
anticipate our listeners here, because we tried to cover some
stuff and I think we did okay, but there's a
lot of stuff that we just couldn't get into this podcast, right. Yeah,
(35:10):
we hit a few, hit a few of these, a
lot of them. We didn't touch on his education, which
was shortened due to World War Two. UM. I think
that he was actually in rule. He graduated from my
school in nineteen forty. He was enrolled at the Georgia
School Technology and the aeron Aeronautical Engineering program. But the
war started up and he went off to serve of course,
and he became a World War Two aviator UM and
(35:33):
he ended up graduating as with the rank of UH
staff Sergeant pilot from there. UM. Let's see, he raised
in sports cars. We mentioned that he raised in F one.
We mentioned that UM stop due to hard issues. We
talked about that, right, Um boy, let's see the Lamon
victory as as driver and owner. We got that. Um. Oh,
(35:54):
he set land speed records in Bonneville. We didn't talk
about that. We did not. Um he was Sports Carl
Straight Driver of the Year. We talked about that twice. Um. Yeah,
he was an inducted to the Automotive Hall of Fame
in n We missed that. Oh my gosh. I mean
he founded his own charity in n The guy has
his own brand to Chili Ben. Um, he's this guy
(36:14):
and he was really he was a genuinely good guy.
I mean, whatever project he touched, he seemed to breathe
like life into that project and it became a Carol
Shelby project. And I think that that's why, you know,
some of these big manufacturers liked to work with him
on this on this real um high level, you know,
because that they enjoyed having him associated with their brand
(36:36):
and uh, and he liked being associated with them as well.
And he continued working towards the very end of his life.
Carol Shelby passed away on May tenth, two thousand and twelve,
just a little more than a year ago. As we
record this. Yeah, it's not that long ago, right, And
that was in Dallas, Texas. And when he when he passed,
(36:58):
he left behind a legacy that endors UH is going
to endure for generations after him. Um. And I know
that sounds a little bit corny, but it is true
when you think about how one person could change not
just the face of multiple car companies, but also more
(37:19):
than one industry. I mean, I'm not even counting chili.
This man has led an amazing life. Now, he didn't
always stay away from controversy. It is true that Car
and Driver magazine had at times some disagreements with him.
For example, Um, people will remember stories about lawsuits that
(37:43):
happened in the course of his career. Um, there was
some there was for time a little bit of controversy
about the Shelby Foundation even UM. And it's no secret
that Carol Shelby did not always agree with the Shelby
American Automobile Club. Yeah, there was quite a bit of controversy.
But you got to think about how long this guy's
(38:04):
career was, what he did, and honestly, like the the
charity thing, that was all cleared up relatively quickly. But
but the news did come out that there was some
kind of something funny going on there, and eventually they
found out that that wasn't the case. Then then it's
then there was some dispute over a car company that
was going to use UH some badges that they had,
the super Snake badges. UM. And I don't remember what
(38:25):
name the name is, like Craft Car Company or something
like that, they were going to use the badges. Um.
And so that's another lawsuit. Of course, his name is
a drug out there again. Um. And you mentioned that
there were some other disputes with you know, just here
and there, I mean lawsuits, And that happens when you're
the head of of big corporations like this, and you
you've got your you know, you've got so many different
(38:45):
lines in the water. Something's gonna go wrong at some
point here and there, and you just have to kind
of put out the fires as you go. Yeah. And
I love that you say that phrase. Am I rolling
over you? Because no, No, that's all right for sure. Yeah.
So he was five when he was, if you will,
squashing the beef resolving things with UH car and drivers specifically,
(39:07):
and the reporters who wrote the stories about him. UH
had the sense that he knew his time was limited
and I'm quoting from an article there, and he wanted
to make sure that he had set the story straight,
and so he resolved a lot of these things. Um,
(39:28):
and he passed away. As we said in UH two
thousand twelve, he had been ill for some time and
the ultimately cause of death was listed as pneumonia. But
he was eighty nine, Scott, that's a that is an
enviable age. Yeah. Sure. And to work right up to
the end and to be successful right up until the end,
I mean it didn't really trail off. I mean, I
(39:49):
don't think I'm overstepping my bounds here and saying that
he was probably a household name for a lot of people.
Oh yeah, I mean he was an automotive icon. I
don't think that there are many people that you could
mention the aime Carol Shelby too, and they wouldn't know
exactly who you're talking about, or in their mind almost
immediately picture and ac Cobra. I think that's just one
of those things that you know, people will so even
(40:10):
people who aren't really you know, car guys or girls.
You mentioned Carol Shelby, and I think that they'll know
who that person is. I really do. I feel good.
I know we're we're intimately involved with the automotive world.
We know you know all about him and everything, but
I think someone outside would also get that mental image.
I've got something for us to end on. Okay. This
comes from a line by journalist Stephen Cole Smith, who
(40:34):
wrote an excellent article that I've been looking at for
a lot of this podcast. Shelby often said that if
he had been better at raising chickens, he would never
have had to resort to his career plan B, building
and racing cars. Really, yeah, and we are so glad,
Mr Shelby that you decided to get out of the
(40:55):
chicken industry. And B he said, if he had been
better at raising chicken and so he he says that
he wasn't a great chicken farmer. Right, it sounds like
something you would say. It does sound like something he
would say. Yeah, Well, so we are going to go
ahead and head out. You guys, we hope that you
have enjoyed our exploration of the life and times of
Carol Shelby. Right to us. Let us know what you
(41:16):
think if there's another anecdote that you would like to
tell us about or there have to be I mean,
the guy was eighty nine years old and and a
total character. There have to be stories out there that,
you know, maybe even some of our listeners have had, um,
you know, some type of personal contact with him. So
if anybody had met him or you know, had the
pleasure of you know, going to his shop in Texas
(41:38):
or or California, or or just meeting him, tell us
about it. Yeah, And if you want to learn more
about Carol Shelby, you can check out our website how
Stuff works dot com. You can just type in Shelby
and Cobra in the search bar and you're gonna have
a couple of really cool articles pop up you and
(42:00):
well we can post them too to make it easier,
and you can find them on our Facebook We your
car Stuff hs W. You can drop us a line
on Twitter. You're gonna have to have something important to say,
just say hi, We'll say how that were things fine?
Working guys? Or you want to get a little bit
more in depth to say, you can send us an
email directly. We are car stuff at Discovery dot com
(42:25):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. This
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
works dot com, m
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house Stuff Works dot Com. All right,
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Ben and I'm Ben Boland,
and we're again we're revisiting topic. I guess right, yes, sir,
Carol Shelby. But this time we're going to, uh, we're
(00:23):
gonna specifically focus on Carol Shelby the man himself. Right
right in our earlier episode, which listeners can check out
for free out iTunes shameless plug, you can hear us
delving into Shelby's work with the Cobra four. Uh. This
podcast is going to be a little bit different because
(00:44):
it occurred to you and I a few weeks ago that,
for two guys who mentioned Carol Shelby so often in
other shows, we have yet to do a show actually
about this guy. Yeah, I guess more of a biography piece. Really,
let's just dive right in, how about that? And a
little bit of it will be repeat from what we've
(01:05):
said before, but we're going to add an awful lot
of material to this, so, um, you know, pay attention
here and there's some there's some good stuff coming at
the end too, I promise, Yes, we always have its wiss. Alright,
So here's the man himself, born way back in right
January eleventh, Leesburg, Texas. Uh. You may hear him refer
to sometimes uh as the world's most famous failed chicken farmer. Yeah,
(01:30):
I've ever heard that one, You know what, I've never
heard that, But but I didn't know he was a
chicken farmer. And that's that make comes a surprise to
a lot of people, because this is the the early
days of the sport really, Um, I know, it's still
like we're talking like the mid fifties when his driving
career really kicked off. Early days of racing, not chicken farming.
Yeah yeah, yeah, chicken farming has been around a long
long time. Early days of sports car racing, I guess. Um,
(01:53):
and that was mid fifties, I guess. And there were
really no big contracts to be had, no million dollar
deals to be made. Um. It really wasn't a full
time job exactly. So you know, you were a driver
on the weekend, and then during the week you still well,
I guess you kept your day job, right, and uh,
and he's a he just happened to be a chicken
(02:14):
farmer from East Texas that had this knack for driving
cars fast, and what a knack he had, Scott, I
think we have. Do you have a little bit about
some of his early racing career. I do. As a
matter of fact. He's a he was a driver for
several teams uh sports cars in the nineteen fifties, and
I'll just listen them here. I think he began as
a hobbyist in nineteen Okay, I'd buy that. Yeah, so
(02:36):
mid fifties though he was he was racing for uh,
you know, I'm sure that through that he gained notoriety.
UM teams took notice or he applied and said he
I'd like to drive for you guys, and he said, well,
let's see what you can do. And um. He drove
for cad Allard, he drove for Aston Martin, Maserati, Austin Healy,
for Donald Healy himself, by the way, which is really cool. Yeah,
(02:57):
it's prestigious. Ferrari was one that he did. He used
a Ferrari in a hill climb competition in Mount Washington.
I believe very successful. In fact, so successful that Aston
Martin decided to pick him up as a as a
driver for the twenty four hours of Lama. Yes, and
this was after his performance with Aston Martin, uh at
(03:20):
Sea Break. So he has earned his stripes by this time.
And I think it was in fifty four he was
at Sea Bring and so it was a little later
he was at Lama and uh just three years after
that he's out of the chicken raising business, Scott and
he founds Carol Shelby sports Cars. Yeah, you know what
(03:41):
I need to go back just one this quick second,
because in fifty nine this is the big point here.
Oh yeah, this is the big switch. In fifty nine
he actually he won the twenty four Hours of Lama
with Aston Martin and that was probably what they call
maybe the pinnacle of his racing career. Um. Now, another
thing is that he was also a sports sports car
illustrated as Driver the Year from fifty nineteen fifty six
(04:01):
and nineteen fifty seven. Um, he was let's see one
more quick thing here. Um. Oh, the ben keep going.
I okay, there's one more thing that I needed to mention,
and I just it's on the tip of my tongue. Okay, Well,
what we'll do is talk a little bit up to
his last one of his last races. I've got it mine,
(04:22):
I'm gonna interrupt you. No go, yeah, no problem. He's
a Formula one driver, and you know what, the reason
that I don't didn't get that right way is he's
he just to me, he didn't. That really wasn't something
that was touted later in his life that he was.
He had this Formula one career very short lived. It
was nineteen fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine. I don't think
he want any races, didn't win any championships anything like that.
(04:43):
But um, there's Formula one thing about him that was
kind of like, to me an unknown. I had always thought,
you know, associated him with sports cars and then of
course later with building cars. Like we talked like you
just mentioned. It's a it's a deep cut. And this
is a real quick sidebar before we get to another
plot twist. For anyone who is on Facebook, you can
(05:05):
go to the Carol Shelby official fan page, which I
am a fan of in my personal life, and every
week they have some Shelby trivia. So this might be
one of those things we might be giving people ammunition
for the trivia. Pay attention. The prize is a T shirt.
The whole T shirt well, you know, what Ben, that's
(05:25):
still pretty cool. I I I'd still like to win
something like that, you know, trivia contest. Plus if we're
giving him all the animal they need and why not, Yeah,
I don't know why I said that, though they'd only
get part of a T shirt. Okay, But this leads
us to nineteen six, right, Scott, And this is where
Shelby is preparing to raise a Maserati two. Yeah, that's right.
And uh and he's still in the sports car world
(05:47):
and uh and and then it hits. It hits. A
month later he starts to have some chest pains. Yeah. Yeah,
so this is uh, this is it like a lifelong
thing for him. I mean, ever since he was a
little kid, he had been having uh art issues and like,
I think it was like a leaky valve I think
is what it was. And um so even later in
his career he was actually using um nitroglycerin pills and
(06:10):
he just had was having lots of trouble with his
heart and uh it just by nineteen sixty he got
to the point where it disrupted his career and of
his driving enough rather that it was something that made
driving impossible for him as a profession, Right, he was
diagnosed with angina pectoris. This heart condition effectively ended his career,
(06:33):
at least as we'll see in the professional racing aspect. Now, Scott,
did you look. I've really listened to our earlier show
under and there's a really cool point that you had
made where we're talking about I think we do touch
on his His heart condition let him out of the
racing world. A lot of people in that rarefied field
(06:58):
would be just crushed, and I'm sure he was. But
instead of just giving up the ghosts entirely, he decided
to come back and launch a new career. Yeah, as
a as a constructor, as a builder. And this all
comes from his days in the sports car of course.
You know, when he was driving, he was noticing other
vehicles that were out there, and he took note of
(07:19):
a of a vehicle from a company, um A C Cars, right,
a C Yes specific model car called the Bristol. And uh,
that's the one that we here in the States referred
to as the Cobra um and the body that everybody,
I mean, i think everybody knows exactly what an AC
Cobra looks like. Right. So the Bristol comes when he
(07:41):
puts a Ford V eight into this and and the
Bristol a pretty small sports came. It wasn't it wasn't
anything exceptionally overpowered or anything in its day. But he
noted that, you know, this is the kind of look
and size and type of car that I want to
I want to eventually build. So what he did was
he stuffed a giant Ford V eight under the hood.
And by giant, I mean the first one was like
(08:03):
a two sixty. And then they decided, well, it's maybe
not enough. Let's jump up to two eight nine. And
then maybe that wasn't enough, so he jumps up again.
And we'll talk about that later. But um, he did
start just cramming these big Ford V eight engines under
the hood of these bristles, and of course, you know,
started winning races, and Ford takes notice, says, you know what,
maybe you're doing something right here that we'd like to
(08:25):
kind of latch onto. How about you work with Ford
and we create um, you know, we'll let you build
the the a C Cobra as you call it here
in the States. Well, we want a Ford hot rod, Yeah,
we want we want to put the Ford brand on it.
So we're gonna back this and not only we're gonna
help you build the a C Cobra, we're also going
to uh let you play around with our new car,
(08:45):
the Mustang, Right, and this results in the nine Shelby GT.
Three and uh, that's a beast. I want to talk
a little bit though about some of the stuff, Uh,
if we're okay with going back just a bit, I
want to talk about some of the stuff he was doing,
um while while this other thing was happening, while this
(09:06):
relationship was Ford was growing. Uh. He had a new
outfit at the time called Shelby American, which which we're
gonna delve into a little bit in the next few minutes.
It's still around. Yeah, it's spoiler alert. And uh. Their
racing program with Cobra began in nineteen sixty two, so
(09:26):
it didn't finish its first race, got a DNF in
October sixty two, but in sixty three, two of his
drivers took first and second at Riverside. Uh. And this
begins a very I guess, a mutually beneficial relationship that
Carol Shelby has with drivers because unlike some other owners, right,
(09:50):
he knows exactly experientially what's happening to these drivers what
their concerns should be. And this sort of leadership shows
because as he begins the Daytona Cobra coop project in
Laman and as Shelby American and the Cobra's UH when
the GT class and they placed fourth overall in Laman. Um,
(10:15):
that all happened as he was beginning to go with Ford.
What I guess, what I'm trying to say is this
guy is doing a lot of stuff and when he
got the when when Ford saw what he was doing,
after the beginning of their relationship, Ford gives Shelby the
GT forty. Yeah, that's really cool because you know he
(10:36):
won in fifty nine in UH in a Aston Martin
and he won in a car called the DBR one.
In the DBR one, there's a picture of it, Ben,
I'm showing to you right now, and that is a
that's a sexy looking carte. That is a nice looking car.
It's not him behind the wheel and this shot here,
but that is a it's exactly what you would think
of British sports car from the late fifties would look
(10:58):
like it's gorgeous. And um, not only did Ford say,
you know, like we trust you so much, we're gonna
give you this this new g T forty platform and
play around with because um. It was nineteen sixty six
and nineteen sixty seven that Shelby returned UM as team
owner with Team Shelby American Inc. Uh with the you know,
a couple of g T fouries and he won in
(11:18):
sixty six sixty seven, and he listened to the driver's
ben for that in in sixty six for the for
the Mark to one of the drivers was Chris and
non I'm on rather and the next driver in that
same car, Bruce McLaren. Really yeah, Bruce McLaren drove for
Carol Shelby in nineteen sixty six, and then in nineteen
sixty seven another couple of big names UM in the
(11:40):
Mark four UH, Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt. So
some big names were behind the you know and Carol
Shelby of course big names on this team in sixty
six and sixty seven. But but you know, those have
to be I think he probably would, you know, cherish
his his outright victory as a driver more than he
would as a team owner. But still a victory, you know,
(12:02):
two times in a row in this new platform from Ford,
which is a really cool platform, by the way. Um,
we both love the GT forty. Um, that's uh, that's
gotta be just an amazing achievement, something that you know,
you're really that real, live that in your memory over
and over and over the rest of your life. And uh,
some of the executives at Ford were probably doing the
(12:24):
same thing at the time because he helped them with
one of their primary goals, which is beating Ferrari. You
gotta beat the pants off of Ferrari because remember there
was that little bit of that scourage between any Yeah,
a little bit of a little tension, that's maybe the
best word for it. Remember when Ford is gonna buy
Ferrari and they said, last minute backed out of the deal,
(12:46):
and then Ford said, well take this, here's GT forty
when you be the crosshom Yeah exactly. I don't know
what which Ford executive that was. Yeah, I think I
have a have a guess. All right it so um
but but all right, So we talked about the the
Shelby American Inc. I do want to say one quick
(13:06):
thing before we continue on here. Um, that Shelby American Inc.
It's still around, obviously, they've been around since sixty two. Um.
They don't just do covers and Mustangs and things like that.
They also have a whole line of vehicles. If you
go to their website now, you'll find that they have
Mustang based cars. They have, um, the Shelby Raptor, which
is a Ford truck. Of course. Um, they have a focus,
(13:28):
they have the Cobra vehicles. Of course, they have a shell.
They still have a Shelby g T forty that you
could buy. Um. And then there's also the Shelby Daytona Coupe,
which is a really cool cars. So UM worthwhile to
look into Shelby American Inc. Still and and see what
they're doing because they are continuing to sell vehicles. UM.
And I guess we should say at this point that,
(13:49):
oh man, where do we go from here? Because it's
not limited to Ford, It's not limited to There's there's
other stuff I want to talk about. There's the Bristol
cars that you know we did. We did a pretty
good job of covering the history of wristle cars in
the in the first podcast. As with the Cobra, you
may want to look back at that. Well, I've got
some stuff we we have some other things that he
did that are not necessarily related as much to his
(14:14):
race or his career as a racer. Um, he begins
to get he begins to become a media personality, kind
of a face of racing in the late sixties going
to the seventies. Uh, he's the kind of guy that
you would see hanging out. He always always Uh, I'm
(14:34):
gonna I'm gonna go ahead and say this, this stereotypical
media portrayal of a straight shooting tell it like it is.
Texan didn't mence his words. He had that black hat
on all the time. I had that black hat on
all the time. You know, I have no room to
talk with that one. And uh, he had um, yeah, charisma. Yeah,
he had his Carol Shelby jacket on him usually on
(14:55):
zipped about mid chest, you know. And uh, he had
just kind of a well the big sideburns and everything,
and he just looked the part of the the sports racer,
you know, team leaders. You know, He's just he was
a hands on guy. Of course. Um that's why you
know the j A. J. Foy kind of reminds me
of that, and that he was a hands on guy
as well, Like he would jump out of the car
(15:17):
and fix it during the race. And so that was
the kind of guy A. J. Foyt was, And I
bet he learned a lot of that working with Carol
Shelby back in the you know, the early to mid sixties.
So um, yeah, Oh it's kind of the background of
this guy. He's you're right, stereotypical on the sidelines, you know,
depiction of the the racing Texan. Uh, little car, big engine.
(15:39):
He would say that, and he had a way with words.
But just for an example, uh, he he starts holding
these Texas chili cookoffs in the nine eight and become
surprisingly uh well known for these takeoff you know. Um.
And it's funny because if you read some of the
(16:00):
articles written about him in retrospect, there are a lot
of people who say that some of that was to
enhance uh, the property value of some land he owned.
All could be you know that he also still well,
I mean his estate now owns. There's a Carol Shelby's
original Texas brand chili that you can buy right now. Um.
(16:21):
It's actually it's a chili kit seasoning packets that time
till you can buy. But um, there's like two recipes,
one for meat, one for chicken. He's got the whole
thing figured out. But yeah, it's funny. These these Texas
chili cookoffs became a big deal at the race tracks,
right and uh and for whatever reason, they just kind
of hung around for I mean decades, right, I mean
he's doing this stuff for a long long time because
(16:43):
chili's delicious, dude. Yeah, I know it'solutely right, Yeah, perfect thing.
And I mean that are like, seriously, the Shelby chili
kits are not that bad. I think they're pretty good.
I've never had one. Yeah, no, I'm gonna have to
gonna have to search for one here. And i'd say,
go traditional. Okay, I'm getting side, but you know, don't
dive right into chicken. Try the other cooking with Benn
(17:04):
and Scott. All right, so let's get back to Uh,
how about we talked about Bristol cars a little bit, Yeah,
a tiny little bit and then um man or do
we want to tell you what? I'm gonna reverse that
decision right now because I want to I want to
leave some of the There's one particular car that I
want to talk about at the end of the podcast
that I know we touched on it before, but it
warrants a message. The message again, Well, hey, let's let's
(17:26):
just hang out before we I feel like we have
so much stuff that we want to say that we're
we need to be careful not to throw it in
willy nilly. So let's take a let's take a break. No,
if you could play some kind of relaxing music for
us here, Yeah, there we go. That's pretty good. Feel
better now? Al right, So you know we mentioned that
it's not you know, his his career wasn't really limited
(17:48):
to just Ford, right right, Yeah, you worked with some
other he did. He worked with in other companies and
the way that this comes about, and I don't know
if a lot of people will will draw this connection,
but he ended up doing a lot of cars for Dodge.
He worked with Chrysler back in starting in their early eighties. Yeah,
actually way through like maybe I want to say, two
thousand and ten eleven, something like that. Yeah, I've got
(18:09):
some info in that. And what's that In two lee
Ia Coca was running Chrysler and they really needed to
according to Io Coca, they really needed to get some
street cred with the performance buyers. And so that's when
they get Shelby in because you know, at this point
it's a D two. At this point, Shelby's opinion can
(18:32):
count as a gold standard. There's a lot of people.
What was the name of his company was the first one,
the American inc um So so twenty years after that.
Now you hit the nail right on the head bed
when I when you mentioned lee Ia Coca. Do you
know what the connection is there between I Coca and
Shelby from years years past? I don't what is it.
I Coca worked at Ford as a designer at one point,
(18:54):
but he worked with the line team that that created
the Ford Mustang, the Ford Escort, the Incoln Continental, you know,
the the resurgence of the Mercury brand. Um So I
Coco was was instrumental in the Ford Mustang project, uh
years and years prior, back in the mid you know,
early sixties. Rather um So I A Coca you know
later said when he's working with Chrysler as as head
(19:16):
of Chrysler um he says, you know who we need
here to really spice things up as we need Carol Shelby.
Because I worked with with that guy. He was loose
cannon back in the day. But let's see what he's
like now. And UM, I don't know it just it
seems like it's a It makes perfect sense when you
think about it that way. UM. So he brings him
on and he says, you know, we've got this line
of Dodge cars that we want you to look at,
(19:37):
and UM, you know, what can you do? Yeah. One
of the things he does, which I thought was interesting,
he is at this point he is becoming his own brand,
or he has already become his own brand arguably. So
he puts his name with the Dodge Shelby charger. Uh.
That's one. He's on the Dodge OMNI g L h
(19:58):
uh and other Chrysler UH cars. Yeah, lots of them.
But the thing is he UM, there's a couple of
different ways to group this. There are Dodged vehicles that
you know, bore the Shelby name, which you mentioned, a
couple of the OMNIGL H and all those. Um. Also
there's some that use Shelby parts but they weren't necessarily
his projects, and that they used performance upgrades from his company. UM.
(20:23):
And then there were some low production numbers that were
actually UM or low production vehicles rather low number production
UH that were actually built at Shelby's Whittier, California plant
and then sold as Shelby cars. So, um, you know,
and we're talking about cars where they may build you know,
like five hundred of them at most or something like that.
That was that was Those are some of the really
(20:45):
really cool cars to me, I think maybe the best
ones the ones that have plaques on the on the dash,
you know that say this is car number four fifteen,
UM one quick side out on the g l H.
Because this is the car that I think is kind
of it's been forgotten in time, but it was really
cool at the time. It slipped through the cracks. Yeah,
do you remember seeing these omni g l H cars
(21:06):
on the road. I remember seeing photographs all right now
these were these were from nineteen six and uh, the
original name was supposed to be the Coyote, was going
to be the Omnique Coyote or something like that, Johnny Coyote.
Carol Shelby chose the initials g l H, which did
standford goes like hell, and you know that was kind
(21:28):
of the uh it was the legend. Yeah, but it's true.
It really did happen that way, and it was just
really a carryover from like the eighty three Shelby charger
that you mentioned. A lot of the parts carried over
into the Omni, which was a smaller and that smaller.
It was just a different shape body, hatchback, real real small. UM.
Then five they had the g l H turbo. Then
(21:48):
they had the g l H S which was the
final I guess, the final five hundred of the turbo run. Uh.
And these are the ones that that Shelby took back
to his office modified. All of them were black. All
of them. UM had a Shelby e c U. They
had UM extra boost, they had performance you know, suspension kits,
they had UM of course, interiors were different, intercooler, UM,
(22:13):
just all kinds of stuff. They know, lots of upgrades, uh,
full you know, full performance package things you know, on
this on this whole vehicle. UM. And they had these
these dash plates of course that I mentioned before with
the number plates, which makes them kind of cool as well.
So you can still find those around there. There's still
something that will pop up here and there for sale.
I bet a lot of them have a lot of
(22:33):
wear and tear on them, but UM, I don't know.
It's kind of a neat car. If you haven't really
seen a Dodge Omni g l H, take a look
at it, because even for the mid what is that
mid six, mid eighties rather, Um, that's kind of like
the early days of the street performance tuner type vehicle. Yeah,
it's kind of a blast from the past in some ways. Uh.
(22:54):
Shelby also helped develop the Viper. Yes, that's a big one.
That's a huge Yeah. And we just talked about the
pace car, right, Oh, yeah, we should talk about well,
the pace car he drove twice, one of them, one
of them this this is hard to believe, he drove
in nine seven. Now, remember he's working with Chrysler from
the early eighties on. So here's this, you know, this legend. Uh,
(23:16):
they haven't drive the pace car for the N five
and nine eight seven, which happened to be the chrysto
Le Baron, which is kind of hard to imagine now
at this point looking back, but it was, and uh
of course Shelby drove it. Um. And then he was
asked back to be a driver again when they used
the Dodge Viper RT ten, which was the concept at
(23:36):
the time. Um, and it was supposed to be then
This is the little twist of this one. Was supposed
to be Uh, the the stealth vehicle is supposed to Dodge.
Stealth was supposed to be the car, but it was
a Japanese built car, and the U a W, the
United Autowork Union Workers, UM, they threw a fit over
that and said, you can't have a Japanese built car
(23:57):
be the pace car for the ND five hundred. Um,
what else have you got? And they brought out the
Dodge I'm sorry, Yeah, the Dodge Viper r T ten
concept car which Carol Shelby. Shelby a Gain drove and
as we've mentioned in the earlier podcast on pace cars
that you alluded to, Uh, the in D five hundred
(24:18):
races always used American made vehicles and the time probably
still will continue, I would think. So. I don't think
that tradition is going to change. Now we need to
start threading in a little bit of foreshadowing at this
point in this Shelby story. You know, it was Maye
right where he's pacing in the Viper. The previous year,
(24:40):
in June of n he had a heart transplant. Yeah, yeah,
he had to go through, um, the heart transplant, which
of course saved his life obviously, I mean, and it
kept going for a long long time. I mean, um man,
I mean that's a big deal for him. I mean
he he had suffered with this since since he was
seven years old, all the way through and until nineteen ninety,
(25:01):
which is what seventies some years old. And it inspired
him in his survival. I bet it did. Yeah, Yeah,
it inspired him to help others, right and uh, and
he did found a charity which is called the Carol
Shelby Foundation. And I think that the mission of this
foundation is, uh is noble. There's no other way to
(25:23):
say it. It funds heart transplants for children, correct, Yeah,
and uh and kidney issues as well. Um. But but
it does fund it helps out children, uh and families
and children that have um, you know, additional expenses due
to medical costs. So you know, this is a You're right,
it's a it's a very very good cause. And it's
(25:43):
still around obviously. UM. But it's been around since nineteen one.
He founded it in nineteen because he was inspired by
you know, the the the the help that he received
in the in the medical field when he needed it most. Right.
And the part you mentioned about kidneys. That's are important
as well because in nine six, his son Michael donates
(26:04):
a kidney to Carol Shelby. Oh no kidny. I didn't
know because he had kidney issues. But he's working the
entire time because in nine seven he's partnering with Oldsmobile
on the Shelby Series one car. Incredible. Yeah, yeah, I
had got some fight in him. I have some notes
about the Series one, but I think I want to
(26:24):
skip that for now. Okay, and let's um, let's move
back into maybe some Bristol car stuff he wants. How
about we we talked about, you know, leading up to
the um we'll lead up to the sixty six Shelby
because um, I think that you know, we we talked
about the A C. Bristol cars, as I mentioned in
the it was in April of two thousand eleven podcast,
(26:48):
and we talked about the Mark one Mark two, which
were the two six nine by nine. Ben. This is
this is amazing. He was put in four seven engines
in in these A C, A C bodies, these a
C Bristol bodies, UM calling them cover of course, and
the maybe the one term that comes up most is
(27:09):
this is a mean car I mean, that's probably the best.
The best description of this thing is it's the it's
the meanest street car you'll ever drive, the right. Um. Now,
there are a couple of versions of this we talked about.
Most of them were actually and this will surprise a
lot of people, but the four twenty and most of
them were actually fight the fights which are still badged
(27:31):
is four seven's were the street car version of the
four seven, and the four twenty seven's that were truly
four twenty seven's that had an actual four twenty seven displacement.
Those were the race engines, and those are the ones
been that are the that that are described as the
mean I mean not only but also the four twenty
seven racing engines. They were like the they were much
(27:54):
much stronger. Yeah, I've got a great quotation from Shelby
himself about this. Sure. Uh. When I built the dual
supercharge Cobra in n I wanted it to be the fastest,
meanest car on the road, just like you said, Scott.
Forty years later, says Shelby, it will still kick the
tail about out of just about anything in the world.
(28:15):
It's the fastest street legal Cobra I've ever owned and
he estimated the zero to sixty mph there at a
little over three seconds. All right, so the man, that's
amazing street legal car. That's incredible. And that's that. Now, Okay,
when we're talking about the which is the street version,
these are these are sc cars which are semi competition cars.
(28:37):
Um the the other version which is a true four
seven and the race engine that's a full competition car,
and uh, and very few of those remain. This is
the kind. This is the one that has the forty
two gallon fuel cell in the back. It's an enormous,
enormous fuel sell on the back. But um man, what
a car. And that wasn't the top end either. There
(28:59):
was one more than he built. He only built two.
Are we talking? It's super scot you know what, it's
time to talk about the super Snake because I've been
dying to get to this the whole time. But I know,
I know we covered it quite a bit and the
other one, but I still just I just want to
quickly talk about it because it's so cool. So what
makes it different? Then I'll set you up. Well, what
makes it different is it's it's uh, it's what is it? Twins?
(29:20):
Twins supercharged, so it's got twin superchargers and overhead valve
eight zero to sixty time is again it's UM zero
to sixty and three point two seconds, and that's in
nineteen sixty six. Been Oh my gosh, Yeah, I accidentally
let the cat out of the bags. Really because that quotation,
you guys, that quotation is shall be talking about. That's okay,
(29:44):
that's all right, don't worry about it all because you
know what, the other ones are pretty darn close to that. Yeah,
but they're well not that close. But this is the
horsepower beast that we we talked about. Bill Cosby owning
it for what one day, yeah, one day, and then
he sold it to and it was just too much
power for him too. He was too scared to drive
it and he was literally too scared to to keep
(30:07):
the car. Um. It then sold to uh oh man,
this is one of only two. Remember he there's Carol
Shelby who owned one, who built it for himself, and
then he built one for Bill Cosby, who was a
friend of his at the time, UM said, and a
car enthusiast. Obviously, UM said it was too much car
for him, so he sold it there he gave it
back to Carol Shelby. They sold it to another guy
(30:30):
who unfortunately the guy drove it out. This thing is
a monster. The guy drove it off a cliff and
into the Pacific Ocean and died. His name is Tony
Tony Tony Maxie, I think was his name. And uh,
then then it was actually it was. It was bought
by somebody, fully restored, and then sold again. And there's
(30:53):
a guy named and I heard somewhere that that Bill
Cosby said that it's now owned by another guy, another entertainer, right. Um,
his name is Jimmy Jimmy Webb, I think, and he's
an American songwriter, composer, singer. But Jimmy Webb is now
in possession of the car that Bill Cosby once owned
for one day, that was driven off a cliff into
(31:15):
the Pacific Ocean killed its owner. Then it was restored
and now Jimmy this uh, Jimmy Webb owns this car again.
And then of course there's the original that that shall
be owned, which I don't know if that's the one
that is that the auction vehicle, the one that got
the five point five million auction prices. I mean Ben,
I tell you, like, I was so excited to talk
about this car again. And I know that it's a
(31:36):
little bit of a rehash of what we talked about
just a little bit. But man, there's uh, there's so
much about the Super Snake from those days that that
is worthwhile mentioning. And they still continue to this day.
Um at at um uh might keep thinking of the
name the the Shelby American Inc. They still continue to
(31:56):
build cars that they call Super Snake. Yeah, but they're
not the original Super Snakes, I mean one of those
two know, but they do. And boy, one more thing
here that I have to mention about about Super Snake
is that recently hot Rod Magazine did this this comparison.
It was a really cool comparison. It was between a
(32:17):
four seven Cobra and a two thousand and eleven Super
Snake that was created or constructed by Shelby American Inc.
Which they're still doing to this day. But this is
a two thousand eleven example. Um Now, regarding the four
seven Cobra, they called it the baddest, nastiest, just meanest
car that's ever been driven on their and their in
(32:39):
their competition and their in their comparisons. UM, it's it
was extremely rare car. Um, it's just a really raw
car as well. They said that it was just like,
you know, the the bare elements of a car. Really,
I mean, it was just the meanest thing. UM loads
of power on demand. And and get this, this is
the five and fifty horsepower version. It's not the eight
(33:00):
hundred horse power version that we had just mentioned. You know. Yeah,
the super Snake of the Cobra so and it waited
something like two thousand, four and sixty pounds, right. Well,
then they have this, uh, this two thousand eleven Shelby
Super Snake, which is a Mustang based car that that,
of course Carol Shelby's company makes, UM seven hundred and
fifty horsepower band and this thing, it's a five point
(33:22):
four Leader Supercharge V eight and it waves about three
thousand fifty pounds, so it's quite a bit more. You know,
it's a lot heavier because they than the Cobra. UM. Now,
Carol Shelby himself in this in this comparison, because he
was interviewed during this he said about that five point
four Leader engine that that's the finest engine that's ever
been built in an American and American car or rather
(33:44):
in America. Uh that that five point four leader um
supercharge engine. So he was really really happy about it.
And he said, for a long long time why they
waited to build this super Snake was because for a
long time they were limited to about five horse power.
That they change in some things around it, and Carol Shelby,
they did what they had to do to make it
work and they got the thing up to like seven
(34:06):
fifty horsepower. Something that would be you know, a worthy
I guess of the Super Snake name, because they don't
just put the Super Sake Snake name on anything, right.
I mean, that's something that that Carol Shelby takes pretty seriously.
So he hangs onto that until you know, they get
up to about seven fifty UM. But it's just to
give an idea now that he said it was ungodly fast.
(34:26):
The guy that drove this thing. Um, it just says
power when you need it. It's it's just like a
stock Mustang when you don't need it. But any other
time it competes well with the four seven Cobra. So um,
there is a modern version that you can get your
hands on out there because you can't get one of
these ultra rare four seven cobras um or you know,
a kick card version of it. If you can't get
an original, Um, there's something modern out there that you
(34:49):
can get from Shelby American Inc. That will sort of
maybe hold you over a little bit. Now, Scott, at
this point, before we wrap up anything, we need to
anticipate our listeners here, because we tried to cover some
stuff and I think we did okay, but there's a
lot of stuff that we just couldn't get into this podcast, right. Yeah,
(35:10):
we hit a few, hit a few of these, a
lot of them. We didn't touch on his education, which
was shortened due to World War Two. UM. I think
that he was actually in rule. He graduated from my
school in nineteen forty. He was enrolled at the Georgia
School Technology and the aeron Aeronautical Engineering program. But the
war started up and he went off to serve of course,
and he became a World War Two aviator UM and
(35:33):
he ended up graduating as with the rank of UH
staff Sergeant pilot from there. UM. Let's see, he raised
in sports cars. We mentioned that he raised in F one.
We mentioned that UM stop due to hard issues. We
talked about that, right, Um boy, let's see the Lamon
victory as as driver and owner. We got that. Um. Oh,
(35:54):
he set land speed records in Bonneville. We didn't talk
about that. We did not. Um he was Sports Carl
Straight Driver of the Year. We talked about that twice. Um. Yeah,
he was an inducted to the Automotive Hall of Fame
in n We missed that. Oh my gosh. I mean
he founded his own charity in n The guy has
his own brand to Chili Ben. Um, he's this guy
(36:14):
and he was really he was a genuinely good guy.
I mean, whatever project he touched, he seemed to breathe
like life into that project and it became a Carol
Shelby project. And I think that that's why, you know,
some of these big manufacturers liked to work with him
on this on this real um high level, you know,
because that they enjoyed having him associated with their brand
(36:36):
and uh, and he liked being associated with them as well.
And he continued working towards the very end of his life.
Carol Shelby passed away on May tenth, two thousand and twelve,
just a little more than a year ago. As we
record this. Yeah, it's not that long ago, right, And
that was in Dallas, Texas. And when he when he passed,
(36:58):
he left behind a legacy that endors UH is going
to endure for generations after him. Um. And I know
that sounds a little bit corny, but it is true
when you think about how one person could change not
just the face of multiple car companies, but also more
(37:19):
than one industry. I mean, I'm not even counting chili.
This man has led an amazing life. Now, he didn't
always stay away from controversy. It is true that Car
and Driver magazine had at times some disagreements with him.
For example, Um, people will remember stories about lawsuits that
(37:43):
happened in the course of his career. Um, there was
some there was for time a little bit of controversy
about the Shelby Foundation even UM. And it's no secret
that Carol Shelby did not always agree with the Shelby
American Automobile Club. Yeah, there was quite a bit of controversy.
But you got to think about how long this guy's
(38:04):
career was, what he did, and honestly, like the the
charity thing, that was all cleared up relatively quickly. But
but the news did come out that there was some
kind of something funny going on there, and eventually they
found out that that wasn't the case. Then then it's
then there was some dispute over a car company that
was going to use UH some badges that they had,
the super Snake badges. UM. And I don't remember what
(38:25):
name the name is, like Craft Car Company or something
like that, they were going to use the badges. Um.
And so that's another lawsuit. Of course, his name is
a drug out there again. Um. And you mentioned that
there were some other disputes with you know, just here
and there, I mean lawsuits, And that happens when you're
the head of of big corporations like this, and you
you've got your you know, you've got so many different
(38:45):
lines in the water. Something's gonna go wrong at some
point here and there, and you just have to kind
of put out the fires as you go. Yeah. And
I love that you say that phrase. Am I rolling
over you? Because no, No, that's all right for sure. Yeah.
So he was five when he was, if you will,
squashing the beef resolving things with UH car and drivers specifically,
(39:07):
and the reporters who wrote the stories about him. UH
had the sense that he knew his time was limited
and I'm quoting from an article there, and he wanted
to make sure that he had set the story straight,
and so he resolved a lot of these things. Um,
(39:28):
and he passed away. As we said in UH two
thousand twelve, he had been ill for some time and
the ultimately cause of death was listed as pneumonia. But
he was eighty nine, Scott, that's a that is an
enviable age. Yeah. Sure. And to work right up to
the end and to be successful right up until the end,
I mean it didn't really trail off. I mean, I
(39:49):
don't think I'm overstepping my bounds here and saying that
he was probably a household name for a lot of people.
Oh yeah, I mean he was an automotive icon. I
don't think that there are many people that you could
mention the aime Carol Shelby too, and they wouldn't know
exactly who you're talking about, or in their mind almost
immediately picture and ac Cobra. I think that's just one
of those things that you know, people will so even
(40:10):
people who aren't really you know, car guys or girls.
You mentioned Carol Shelby, and I think that they'll know
who that person is. I really do. I feel good.
I know we're we're intimately involved with the automotive world.
We know you know all about him and everything, but
I think someone outside would also get that mental image.
I've got something for us to end on. Okay. This
comes from a line by journalist Stephen Cole Smith, who
(40:34):
wrote an excellent article that I've been looking at for
a lot of this podcast. Shelby often said that if
he had been better at raising chickens, he would never
have had to resort to his career plan B, building
and racing cars. Really, yeah, and we are so glad,
Mr Shelby that you decided to get out of the
(40:55):
chicken industry. And B he said, if he had been
better at raising chicken and so he he says that
he wasn't a great chicken farmer. Right, it sounds like
something you would say. It does sound like something he
would say. Yeah, Well, so we are going to go
ahead and head out. You guys, we hope that you
have enjoyed our exploration of the life and times of
Carol Shelby. Right to us. Let us know what you
(41:16):
think if there's another anecdote that you would like to
tell us about or there have to be I mean,
the guy was eighty nine years old and and a
total character. There have to be stories out there that,
you know, maybe even some of our listeners have had, um,
you know, some type of personal contact with him. So
if anybody had met him or you know, had the
pleasure of you know, going to his shop in Texas
(41:38):
or or California, or or just meeting him, tell us
about it. Yeah, And if you want to learn more
about Carol Shelby, you can check out our website how
Stuff works dot com. You can just type in Shelby
and Cobra in the search bar and you're gonna have
a couple of really cool articles pop up you and
(42:00):
well we can post them too to make it easier,
and you can find them on our Facebook We your
car Stuff hs W. You can drop us a line
on Twitter. You're gonna have to have something important to say,
just say hi, We'll say how that were things fine?
Working guys? Or you want to get a little bit
more in depth to say, you can send us an
email directly. We are car stuff at Discovery dot com
(42:25):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. This
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
works dot com, m
CarStuff News
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