An American Icon

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Rodney and I were fortunate today to meet one of the legends of the automotive industry. Wikipedia gave the following information about him and his impact on the industry.

"Carroll Shelby has had an impressive impact on automotive racing and design over the last 50 years. Starting out amateur, he soon became a driver for the Cad-Allard, Aston Martin, and Maserati teams during the 1950s. Driving for Donald Healey, in a streamlined and supercharged, specially-modified, Austin-Healey 100S, he set 16 US and international speed records. Teamed with Roy Salvadori, and driving for Aston Martin, he won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans. He drove in the Mount Washington Hillclimb Auto Race in a specially prepared Ferrari roadster, to a record run of 10:21.8 seconds on his way to victory in 1956. He was Sports Illustrated's driver of the year in 1956 and 1957. After retiring from driving in October 1959 for health reasons, he opened a high performance driving school and the Shelby-American company. In the shop he designed and built the famed "Cobra" cars, which were derived from an AC chassis and powered by Ford V-8 engines. Shelby went on to help design some of the most successful and beautiful cars of the era: the GT40, the Mustang-based Shelby GT350 and Shelby GT500, and of course the 427 Shelby Cobra. Parting with Ford, Shelby moved on to help develop performance cars with divisions of the two other Big 3 American companies, Dodge, and Oldsmobile. The most memorable of these cars was the Dodge Viper. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1992."

He signed the dashboard of both Rodney's Shelby Cobras and was gracious enough to pose with us for photos. Many thanks to him and to Mike Craig Ford for arranging this meeting!