Shelby, Carroll

Carroll Shelby was born on January 11, 1923 in Leesburg , Texas, to the family of Warren Hall Shelby, a rural postman, and his wife, Eloise Lawrence Shelby. Carrol, who had heart valve problems at the age of 7, spent most of his childhood in bed. At the age of 14, Carroll's health improved, and he subsequently stated that he had “outgrown” his health problems ^[7] . Shelby married his first wife, Jeanne Fields, on December 18, 1943. Their daughter Sharon Ann Shelby was born a year later - December 27, 1944. They had two more children, sons named Michael Hall (born November 2, 1946) and Patrick Burt (born October 23, 1947). Shelby and Fields divorced in February 1960. On September 3, 1997, Shelby married Cleo Patricia Margarita (Shelby). On May 10, 2012, Carroll Shelby passed away.

Shelby honed his Willys driving skills while attending Woodrow Wilson High School ( Dallas , Texas ). After leaving school in 1940 , Shelby was drafted into the United States Army . He served in the aviation corps and participated in World War II as a flight instructor and test pilot .

Carroll Shelby has had a significant impact on car racing and car design over the past 50 years. Starting as an amateur, he soon became a pilot for teams like Cad-Allard , Aston Martin , and Maserati in the 1950s. Sharing his driving with Donald Healy on a specially modified streamlined and turbocharged Austin-Healey 100 S , he set 16 US and international speed records. Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori driving Aston Martin won Le Mans 24 hours in 1959 .

He raced in a specially prepared Ferrari roadster , with a record speed of 10: 21.8 seconds per lap on his way to victory in 1956.

According to Sports Illustrated magazine , he was recognized as the driver of the year in 1956 and 1957.

Shelby also competed in Formula 1 between 1958 and 1959, participating in a total of eight world championships and several non-governmental championships.

After retiring from racing in October 1959 for health reasons, he opened a driving school and Shelby-American company. He obtained a license to import successful British sports racing cars manufactured by AC Motors, installed an engine from the American Ford instead of the original British Bristol engine, and introduced the new car to the American public as AC Cobra , later known as Shelby or Shelby Cobra. Shelby continued to work with Ford to produce cars such as the Daytona Coupe, GT40, Mustang based on the Shelby GT350 and Shelby GT500, and of course, 427 Shelby Cobra. Having parted with the Ford company, Shelby came to the aid in the development of automobiles for divisions of two other American automobile companies from the Big Three : Dodge and Oldsmobile . The most memorable of these cars were the Dodge Viper and Oldsmobile 442 .

Ford provided financial support for the production of the Cobra Shelby from 1962 to 1965 and the Ford GT , first with John Weyer Ford Advanced Vehicles in 1963, and then with Shelby American from 1964 to 1967.

In subsequent years, Shelby developed an interesting series for the "completion" of Cobra production - these Cobras were allegedly built using the "remnants" of spare parts and frames. In 1960, the FIA (International Automobile Federation) demanded manufacturers (Shelby, Ford, Ferrari, etc.) to produce batches of at least 100 cars in serial production of those models that are presented in races. Shelby simply built some small number of cars and passed between the first and second parts of the party a large block of VIN numbers to create the illusion of a large number of cars. Decades later, in the 1990s, Carroll began to claim that he had found the “remaining” cars, and began selling cars that were supposedly finally “completed”. After the cars were discovered (they were naturally built from scratch) in collaboration with McCluskey Ltd, they were called the "continuation" of Cobra. The car is manufactured to this day, and is known as the Cobra CSX4000 series.

Carroll Shelby has been represented at the International Motorsport Hall of Fame since 1991 and the America Motorsport Hall of Fame since 1992. In 2003, Ford Motor Co and Carroll Shelby re-established communications. Carroll Shelby became technical advisor to the Ford GT project. In the same year, he founded Carroll Shelby International, Inc. in Nevada.

Shelby began working with Dodge at the request of Lee Iacocca , chairman of Chrysler Corporation . Iacocca was previously responsible for the Shelby Ford Mustang. After nearly a decade of tuning for this job, Shelby was taken aboard as the “productive consultant” on the Dodge Viper Technical Policy Committee of Chrysler, consisting of executive director Bob Lutz, chief designer Tom Gale, and engineering vice president Francois Casten. Shelby used his wealth of experience to make the Viper as light and powerful as possible.

Died in Dallas at the age of 89. Carroll Shelby was one of the longest-living donor heart recipients in the United States. In July 1990, the heart of a 34-year-old man was transplanted to him. In 1996, Shelby had a kidney transplant; his son became a donor.