Carroll Shelby's Racers

Since the early 1960s, Carroll Shelby has built some of the fastest, most outrageous automobiles ever to hit the streets. Yet the real reason he's a household name today is that he backed up his street creds with race wins. In fact, when the Shelby American company was formed, it was with the intention of winning GT races against the all-conquering Ferraris. Here's a short history on some of his more notable comp cars

Making History
The Shelby American story starts in 1962 with the legendary Cobra. No sooner had Shelby finished the first prototype to show Ford what it had been spending its money on then he started fabricating the first Cobra racing car. It was a quick-and-dirty race-prep job with a mildly modified Ford 260-inch engine, 16-inch wire wheels, a roll bar and some minor beefing-up. Sporting less than 275 hp, it didn't seem like much compared to a 375-hp fuel-injected Corvette—until the flag fell!


First blood was at Riverside in late 1962. Billy Krause flogged the new warrior around the track, easily pulling away from a group of new Sting Rays, which had expected to dominate the big-bore class. At one time Krause was over a mile ahead, but a rear suspension part failed and put him out. The Corvettes won, but everyone knew their days were numbered.

Precision Prep
Sure enough, from then until 1965 the small-block Cobras ruled big-inch American sports car racing. Shelby also took his team of 289 roadsters (the 260 was replaced by the 289-inch engine in 1963) to Europe to do battle with the Ferrari 250 GTOs. At first the Cobras were quick but fragile, but by 1964 they had developed into formidable racers.


In 1964 Shelby introduced the Daytona Coupe, a fastback version of the Cobra roadster that was capable of 180 mph (30 mph higher than the less aerodynamic roadsters). Shelby was well on the way to victory in the GT Championship when Ferrari pulled strings to get the last race (in which Shelby was favored to win) cancelled, giving the red cars from Maranello a narrow win in the Championship.