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CLASSIC INTEREST
Shelby classics are treasures
American icons are sought after classic cars
By David Grainger
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Carroll Shelby is perhaps one of the most famous personalities in American performance car history. Little wonder then that all three American car builders have employed him at one time or another to hawk their wares, beginning with Ford in the 1960s.
Shelby was a very successful race car driver in the 1950s and into the '60s. In 1956 and '57 Sports Illustrated named him sports car driver of the year. He and teammate Roy Salvadori won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans in an Aston Martin, but his racing career was dashed a short while later by heart trouble.
Shortly afterwards he got the idea of putting American engines - the Ford Falcon 260 and 289 - into a British sports car built by A.C. The result was the legendary. A.C. Cobra that dominated American racing in the early 1960s. And while Shelby himself was sidelined from most racing by his heart condition, his cars carried his name to immortality.
Ford's association with Shelby eventually blossomed into a partnership, though the A.C. body was discarded in favour of the Mustang Fastback. Once again Shelby's cars were draped in checkered flags and Ford profited from a public that saw little difference between the Shelby Cobra 350 GT cars on the track and the factory replicas they could buy in the showroom.
Over the years the original A.C.-bodied Cobras have become sought after icons, with prices that rarely fall below $300,000 U.S for a car with provenance, and can in some circumstances fetch much more. The Mustang-bodied 350 GT is also a collectible, and while not matching those of the earlier cars, can still command $75,000 to $100,000 for a restored, numbers matching car.
In 1967, Shelby and Ford bowed to public demand and produced the Shelby 500 GT and KR. These cars carried big block motors and while not as nimble as their smaller engined brethren, were very fast in a straight line. In 1968 Ford took over production of the Shelbys from Carroll Shelby and started to produce the cars in its own plants, eventually ending the association in 1970.
Shelby had numerous dealings with other car companies, but in the 1980s it was Dodge that carried the Shelby name when it once again appeared on a production car. The first Shelby Dodge Charger was a performance car in appearance only, since the package was mostly trim. But as the association grew, numerous Dodge products with significant performance enhancements started to carry the Shelby name. Few of the Dodges ever attained fame like the Ford Shelbys, but considering what was going on in Detroit in the '80s it was small wonder.
Shelby's next big hit was in the early 1990s, again with Dodge, but this time it was to create an immortal car - the Dodge Viper. While the Viper was born a child of Bob Lutz, Carroll Shelby's company built the first Viper prototype in the late '80s and it was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in 1989.
Since then, Carroll Shelby has been involved in numerous projects of his own, from reproducing 40 original Cobras (perfect replicas of his first cars), to creating the Shelby Series 1, a dramatic modernized roadster. Shelby also has the distinction of creating perhaps the most copied cars in history. There have been hundreds of small companies over the years that have created fibreglass and even aluminum recreations of the early A.C. Cobras, and many a Mustang has been converted into a Shelby as well. Many of these recreations, like the Aurora Cobra made in Richmond Hill, Ontario many years ago, were wonderful cars in their own right. Others, however, were dangerous scows. But almost all have failed to become any more than cottage industry endeavours that collapse just when they think they have it made.
Even Carroll Shelby himself has had little luck recreating the wonder and excitement of those early cars, despite some significantly bankrolled attempts like the Shelby Series 1.
With this in mind you have to wonder, what are the people at Ford thinking?
At this year's Detroit auto show an ugly cartoon of the original Cobra, complete with Bill Ford and the now Octogenarian Shelby inside, came trooping out with the retro-styled Mustang and the Ford GT.
It's unfortunate that Ford, one of the great car companies, seems so lost these days. It's as if the automaker is suffering from corporate Alzheimer's in which it can't see the modern world through the fog, only dimly remembered glories of bygone days.
The new Cobra that Ford trotted out is probably more out of step with modern performance reality than the GT or the Thunderbird. Don't get me wrong. I love the GT because it is identical in appearance to the GT 40 of the 1960s, one of my all time favourites, but as a corporate endeavour I think it might prove a disaster.
Most people like retro cues, not retro cars, and it doesn't take long for the small pool of buying enthusiasts to be drained, at which time a retro car has to be cast to a greater, and largely unimpressed, public. If it isn't sensible or able to compete with the futuristic concepts coming from Europe, Japan and even Korea, then it is bound to fail.
While I don't know if Ford is planning to recreate another blast from the past for production with the Cobra, I think the automaker definitely needs a dramatic shakeup in its design department. To unveil a car as plain and hackneyed as this concept amidst such a flurry of truly dramatic and fresh concepts and new production cars like the C6 Corvette, is just another embarrassment to what used to be one of the grandest car companies in the world.
Poor old foundering Ford.
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