Featured car - New Shelby Mustang has an alarming 882kW
New Shelby Mustang has an alarming 882kW
Modified GT500 has 882kW, that’s nearly twice the power…
New Shelby Mustang has an alarming 882kWLatest news
-
TG drives the Shelby Mustang GT500
Speed isn’t everything. Especially when you can’t use it for fear of losing control…
TG drives the Shelby Mustang GT500 -
But however quickly or slowly he goes – and one thing you can guarantee is that this man always beats expectations – with Shelby American Inc. thriving, his legacy is certain to be a lasting one. Not all of the cars touched by the Shelby name have been great over the last 50 years, but all of them have been vividly exciting. Here’s to that continuing for the next half-century. Even when the man is gone, the spirit and the passion will live on forever.
-
So, far from standing still, Shelby American is moving forward, refining its current products and looking at new ones with even more power – and alternative drivetrains. Shelby says he has already built a couple of concept electric Cobras, but he doesn’t see that becoming a core business for him anytime soon. “We’ve got the petrol-engine emissions clean now, so I think petrol is going to be around for another 20 or 30 years,” he says. “At my age, that’s where my interest lies. I think it’ll see me out.”
Likewise, Shelby isn’t planning on doing any more licensing of his name to any manufacturer other than Ford in his lifetime. “I hope to die with Ford,” he says. “I am not looking anywhere else.” And, as unthinkable as the end seems, it looks like that isn’t going to be too far away now. Despite being one of the longest-surviving heart transplant recipients in the world, Shelby’s health has got a lot worse over the last year. Our chat with him was probably one of the last the media will ever have.
-
The new speed shop is significant as it allows Shelby American to offer owners of all brands of muscle car, not just Mustangs, to have a bit of Shelby magic sprinkled on them. With a dyno rated at up to 1491kW and 13 lifts, there are apparently no end of takers for this as the workshop was packed with cars from a range of brands, all having their DNA rearranged by the Shelby experts.
-
As does the business as a whole now. Despite some thin times in years past, company president John Luft reckons Shelby American is in great shape. “There are three parts to the Shelby business,” he says. “There’s the car manufacturing, the licensing of the Shelby name, and now there’s the speed shop, Shelby American Motorsports. Together they make for a great business.”
-
We took a drive in an early Super Snake demonstrator and were impressed with the fit, finish and all-round performance and handling. A Shelby American Mustang isn’t just a standard car with some extra stripes, a big blower and a new set of wheels.
The guys work on every aspect of the car, from the engine to the chassis, from the brakes to the bodywork. And rather than roughing up the Shelby GT500’s character, the Shelby car felt tighter, more eager to change direction. And monumentally more powerful. We’d like to live with one on road and track for a few days before pronouncing fully on it, but, on the strength of the drive we had, it works.
-
That car was – and still is – produced by Ford’s SVT department, Dearborn’s finest licensing the use of the Shelby name from the great man. But Shelby’s own operations at Shelby American Inc. HQ in Las Vegas haven’t stood still. The company continues to produce the timeless 289 and 427 Cobras, plus it manufactures – not tunes – around 500 Shelby Mustangs a year at its dedicated manufacturing facility.
Customers can send their own standard Mustang or arrange their dealership to send their new one direct, then Shelby American applies the upgrade package of choice – from the base GTS package for the V6 all the way to the full, snarling 600kW Super Snake option for the Shelby GT500. These packages include bodywork, chassis and, of course, engine upgrades. But there are stacks of additional extras that customers can choose from to make their Shelby unique.
-
Luckily, soon afterwards, Ford was getting back into the performance-car business and re-signed Shelby to bring back his proven performance magic to the Blue Oval range. The first product of that reunion was the Shelby Cobra concept in 2004, followed by the gorgeous, shimmering GR-1 a year later. The first of the modern-era Shelby Mustangs, the GT500, went on sale in 2006 and stayed true to the Shelby big-bangs-for-your-buck philosophy. Complete with a supercharged 5.4-litre V8 wearing Ford GT heads and producing exactly 372kW, it went on sale for just over US$40,000.
-
Brought into the Viper team as a performance consultant, Shelby worked with other luminaries such as Bob Lutz, Tom Gale and François Castaing to produce the all-American hero car. Ironically, the only thing that might overshadow Shelby’s 50th anniversary at the NYC show is the reveal of the latest-gen SRT Viper on the same day.
With all this success working for other carmakers, in 1999 Shelby struck out on his own for the first and last time. The Oldsmobile-engined Shelby Series 1 looked right, sounded right and went like a greased weasel. But some very long and very boring legal problems involving company takeovers, key management changes at GM and large sums of money killed that project when just 240 of the cars had been made. That wasn’t enough to cover all the development costs, so Shelby was left with an eight-figure hole in his bank account, which convinced him never to go solo on a car project again.
-
Fitted with this engine and then the 289 and monster 427 V8s, Cobra became – and remains – one of the most recognisable, exciting and, in inexperienced hands, dangerous sports cars on the planet. It’s also one of the reasons we have to suffer the 110km/h speed limit on our motorways, following a Cobra Coupe being nicked on a UK freeway at 315km/h during a shakedown run.
Flushed with success on road and track, the Ford–Shelby partnership expanded over the next couple of decades, leading to the bobtailed Daytona Coupe, the Ferrari-baiting and beating GT40, plus the GT350 and monstrous Shelby GT500 Mustangs. There could have been more, but when the boss of Ford, Lee Iacocca, left to go to Chrysler, Shelby went with him.
A confusing range of Dodges emerged wearing the Shelby name, either as tuned versions of existing models like the 1989 Dodge Daytona Shelby or Shelby-badged variants such as the Shelby GLHS, between 1983 and 1989, but none of them became instant classics like the fast Fords. None, that is, until the mighty Viper emerged in 1991.
-
He would have surely gone on to many more victories and achievements, but the heart condition that has dogged him since the age of seven put paid to those and cut his racing career short. So, with no way of venting his competitive spirit behind the wheel, Shelby opened a race school and started building cars. Just because he couldn’t race didn’t mean he couldn’t enable others to pursue his passion.
But rather than build his own car from the ground up – something Shelby has only done once since and still regrets – he instead secured a licence to import the AC Ace from AC Motors in the UK. A 2.0-litre Bristol engine usually powered the Ace, but Shelby needed more speed to compete against the Chevy Corvettes, so he fitted a 2.6-litre Ford V8 instead. And thus, the fearsome Shelby Cobra was born.
-
Looking back is not something Shelby likes to do. He prefers to fix his gaze forward, focusing on his next project rather than dwelling on the past. But as he’s just about to celebrate his half-centenary of producing lethally amusing cars by unveiling his latest explosive creation at the 2012 New York Auto Show, 50 years to the day after the first Cobra broke cover on the Ford stand at the same event, we’re sure he won’t mind this recap.
Before he started building cars in 1962, Shelby spent the Fifties earning his racing spurs on the race circuits of the world. Among his many achievements, he won the Le Mans 24 Hours in an Aston Martin in 1959, set 16 American and international speed records in a specially smoothed and supercharged Austin Healey 100S and competed in the 1958 and 1959 seasons of Formula One, behind the wheel of a Maserati 250F and then an Aston Martin DBR4-250.
-
Editor's note: We've just received the sad news that today - 11 May 2012 - Carroll Shelby has passed away at the age of 89 after being hospitalised for pneumonia. Here is our story from Top Gear magazine published only one month ago, dedicated to a true automotive legend.
---
Moving slowly and deliberately, automotive legend Carroll Shelby, wearing his trademark black Stetson hat, raises his right hand towards the spotlights high up in the rafters and acknowledges the crowd’s applause. It’s amazing he’s here at the 2013 Shelby GT500 Mustang reveal, as he’s been laid up in a hospital bed, fighting his long-running health problems, until about an hour ago. But then, Shelby, even at 89, is amazing.
He’s been fighting the competition and the odds for the past 50 years, so yanking out his life support system to be present at a car launch isn’t unusual for him. It’s just business as usual for the guy who has put his name, reputation and life on the line for cars all his adult life.
Words: Pat Devereux
This article originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Top Gear magazine
-
RIP Carroll Shelby
Sad news: the American automotive legend and king of muscle has passed away at the age of 89
-
Gallery: Shelby 1000 Mustang
See more pics of the most powerful Shelby in history: the Shelby 1000 Mustang
-
Shelby reveals 708kW tuned Mustang
The most powerful Shelby Mustang in history has landed: it’s the Shelby 1000
Read about the new Shelby 1000 Mustang -
Shelby Mustang GT500
And there’s even launch control and an optional Torsen limited slip diff, but only as part of a hardcore Performance Pack, or a super hardcore Track Pack designed for touched owners who still feel let down by the car’s performance. As if.
-
Shelby Mustang GT500
The Ford Mustang will break new barriers this year. The 320km/h barrier, to be precise. A 5.8-litre engine with 480kW and 813 Newton metres of twisty torques - this GT500 is one fast pony. Ford have given it a slippery aerodynamic body, Brembo brakes but kept the live rear axle. Scaretastic.
-
When is a Mustang not a Mustang?
When it’s a NASCAR Mustang, that’s when. Ford does bad things to its classic muscle car name…
Read about the Stang
Search news
Advertisement
Open Car Bar