50th Anniversary - Carroll Shelby, Hot Rodder

Nobody likes a good story better than Carroll Shelby, so let's start this story with a story. In 1915, years after the racing exploits that launched both of their careers, Henry Ford and Barney Oldfield happened to meet again. As they shook hands, Ford, by then among the world's richest men, gave his former driver a wink and generously remarked that he reckoned the two of them had made each other. Oldfield winked right back and said, "I guess I did the better job of it."

No, that’s not Shelby in the... 

   

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That's sort of how we feel about our old buddy Shelby. As the Cobra celebrates its 50th birthday this year, we note that HOT ROD and the formerly skinny Texan go back a ways--to before the beginning, actually. And after all these years, we're still here, working the back-alley garage beat, while Shelby rose to the pinnacle of the automotive world. His career

 

has transcended hot rodding and the American car scene. Today, the Shelby name is as well known around the globe as Enzo Ferrari or Henry Ford. Not bad for an old chicken farmer from East Texas. But, as Shelby himself will be the first to tell you, he's just an old hot rodder--one of us, one of you.

Shelby's biggest win as a driver was his LeMans victory for Aston-Martin in 1959. But his first trip down a racetrack was on a dragstrip at Grand Prairie Naval Air Station in 1952, driving a Ford V8-powered hot rod for his childhood buddy, Ed Wilkins. Through the '50s, Shelby made a respectable living racing high-priced Ferraris and Maseratis for wealthy car owners including John Paravano and Lucky Casner. But he first made a name for himself manhandling a Cad-Allard, a thuggish contraption that consisted essentially of an OHV Cadillac V8 strapped into a crude Ford-based chassis. His favorite driving uniform? A pair of bib overalls. And his favorite cars for road racing were hot rod specials like Billy Krause's Chevy-powered D-Type Jaguar and Max Balchowsky's Old Yaller II. In Shelby's eyes cars like these, with the proper preparation, were more than capable of beating the world's best.

This is from: http://www.hotrod.com/thehistoryof/hrdp_1202_cobra_50th_anniversary_carroll_shelby_hot_rodder/