But Shelby longed to build his own car. His first attempt, which tried to marry an Italian body from Scaglietti with
Chevrolet Corvette running gear, faltered when General Motors management nixed the deal. Several years later, the
planets finally aligned-. In 1961, when AC Cars in England lost Bristol, its engine supplier, Shelby contacted the company
and outlined a plan to use the chassis to build a V-8-powered sports car, which AC approved. Shelby's pal
Dave Evans inside Ford helped him secure a deal to buy small-block V-8s, and he acquired fellow racer
Lance Reventlow's race-car building enterprise, which was falling on hard times. Within a matter of months
Shelby had a chassis, an engine (a 260 cubic-inch Ford V-8), a building to assemble them in, and the engineering
brains behind Reventlow's operation, Phil Remmington.
"Evans carried me into (then Ford president) Lee Iacocca's office in Detroit," Shelby recalled late last
year. "I said I needed $25,000 to build two chassis that I thought could blow the doors off the Corvette.
Iacocca said he'd think about it, but then he told (product engineer/ Mustang father) Don Frey
'Maybe we should give him $25,000 before he bites somebody.'"
Read more:
Carroll Shelby: Cobra Creator and American Racing Legend Dead at 89 - Automobile Magazine