Caroll Shelby Passed Away.

[twyacht]

The one car we simply would want. Hands Down...

http://msn.foxsports.com/motor/story/Carroll-Shelby-dies-race-car-designer-cobra-age-89-051112/

Carroll Shelby, the legendary car designer and champion auto racer who built the fabled Shelby Cobra sports car and injected testosterone into Ford's Mustang and Chrysler's Viper, has died. He was 89.

Shelby's company, Carroll Shelby International, said Friday that Shelby died a day earlier at a Dallas hospital.

''We are all deeply saddened, and feel a tremendous sense of loss for Carroll's family, ourselves and the entire automotive industry,'' said Joe Conway, president of Carroll Shelby International, Inc. and board member. ''There has been no one like Carroll Shelby and never will be. However, we promised Carroll we would carry on, and he put the team, the products and the vision in place to do just that.''

Shelby was one of the nation's longest-living heart transplant recipients, having received a heart on June 7, 1990, from a 34-year-old man who died of an aneurism. Shelby also received a kidney transplant in 1996 from his son, Michael.

The 1992 inductee into the Automobile Hall of Fame had homes in Los Angeles and his native east Texas.

The one-time chicken farmer had more than a half-dozen successful careers during his long life. Among them: champion race car driver, racing team owner, automobile manufacturer, automotive consultant, safari tour operator, raconteur, chili entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Get to about the 1:11 mark....In Shelby Blue & White..

RIP Mr. Caroll Shelby. You set the standard for just downright Horsepower!!!!

God Speed....

[tt11758]

This truly is a sad day for "car guys", and especially those of us who grew up during the era of the muscle car.  One of my best buddies in high school got a car like this one from his dad for his 16th birthday.  It's now nearly 40 years later and that's still the closest I've ever come to having a rocket strapped to my ass.



1968 Shelby GT500.

RIP Carroll Shelby.  And thanks for the memories.   

[twyacht]

OK tt, the GT500,....is a really, really, really, really, really, close second,....

Then,,,



Now,...

[Pathfinder]

That's a GT-500KR, there, Tommie! KR as in King of the Road. I lust for that front-end alone . . . . .

There were also my favorites from ol' Carroll:


Cobra Daytona Coupe - only 6 made, a 7th - with the 427 mind you - was just parts when some guy in Denver found them and built the thing. Last I heard a quartette of doctors in upstate NY owned it, spent well in excess of a million bucks, and that was 15 years ago. The Coupe is my all-time favorite car ever.


Ford made Shelby give up the Cobras to help with the GT-40 program. My second all-time favorite car.


OK, not a "favorite", but you gotta admire a guy who can take a Plymouth GLH POS and turn it into a "Goes Like Hell" car.


In his 80's!!!!! ol' Carroll invented this!

[PegLeg45]

A true legend in the auto world.
He left big shoes.

[Sponsor]

[Magoo541]

On the list of people that have passed away that I didn't know Caroll Shelby's passing is right up there with the Duke and Ronald Reagan that I count as great loss for this country.   

RIP Caroll, do some hot laps for me!

[Solus]

Carroll Shelby put together his first AC Cobra in 1962 when I was 15.  

I wanted one but all I got was a key chain.  2.6" pewter disc with the Cobra emblem and a chain that looked like snake scales.

It was said the AC Cobra would go from zero to 100 and back down to zero in 12 seconds.  A phenomenal automobile.

If only Jaguar could have gotteb that performance from their '60s E-Type...my vote for the most beautiful car.

My first choice for a ride would have been Ferrari 365GTB/4 (Daytona), which shars lines with the E-Type....but only because the Ford GT40 was short on trunk space.

Ford pulled Carroll Shelby off the Cobras to work on the GT-40....wish I still had that key-chain.  

RIP, Mr. Shelby.  You left your mark.....and many have used  your creations to leave theirs as twin black stripes on the paved roads of the world.



 

[Pathfinder]

Carroll Shelby put together his first AC Cobra in 1962 when I was 15.  

I wanted one but all I got was a key chain.  2.6" pewter disc with the Cobra emblem and a chain that looked like snake scales.

You am me both. Broke my heart when Shel left Cobras - they sold the race cars for like $2000. I was a year or two younger than you, so this was totally out of the question.

I do still have the ancient Sports Car Graphic magazine from ca. 1964 with the Daytona Coupe on the cover in the middle of a pit stop at Sebring - in the middle of the night no less.

It was said the AC Cobra would go from zero to 100 and back down to zero in 12 seconds.  A phenomenal automobile.
...
RIP, Mr. Shelby.  You left your mark.....and many have used  your creations to leave theirs as twin black stripes on the paved roads of the world.

There is this from another quarter - those who could afford the Cobras!

"Faster than anything Steve McQueen owns!"