Thank you for a superb summary of Carroll's life and the changes he made for the good within motorsport.

A small correction--his Oldsmobile-powered Series 1 was done on his own; he was hoping Olds would take the car "in house" but alas they didn't and even Olds failed soon afterwards. As a sometime biographer of Shelby I have a few observations if I may indulge: I credit Shelby with changing sports car racing. Before he came along it was a bit snobby, like say polo playing is now. Then along come Shelby, a failed chicken farmer wearing his farmer overalls, and starts winning sports car races. After only a few years of racing he worked his way up to winning the biggest sports car race of them all, the 24 Hours of LeMans. After that, sports car racing was open to everyone and the former “big guys” like like “Gentlemen Jim” Kimberly and Briggs Swift Cunningham, weren’t so big anymore. Secondly, I liked Shelby’s attitude toward workers. He hired Pete Brock when he was only 19 and kept giving him more responsibilities until Brock created the Cobra Daytona coupe, the fastback that allowed the Cobra enough additional speed to beat the Ferrari 250GTO. And he hired Phiil Remington, an old hot-rodder who helped Ford win LeMans with the GT40s that had failed in their first year. So as a talent spotter extraordinaire, Shelby should be recognized. Creating the Cobra is what most writing about Shelby will talk about and I can’t neglect that. What his Cobra did was liberate sports car fans from the tyranny of foreign car mechanics. No more waiting for engine parts from Modena or Coventry, hell, no, go down to the corner parts store and there’s all the engine bits you need for a 260 , 289 or 427 Cobra. I have to give Shelby credit for leading Ford through the wilderness of endurance car racing so that they won LeMans four times in a row, thus establishing Ford as a brand in Europe. And let’s give him credit too, for shaking America loose from the silly cars that GM and Chrysler were showing at car shows, with “bubble tops” and jet exhausts. Once Shelby made race cars where every tiny bit was race-honed, it made those fantasy dream cars irrelevant. God knows what Detroit would be making now if it wasn't for Shelby waking them up a bit. And even though Shelby’s front drive cars for Chrysler are not recognized as collectable, it was Shelby who showed that an American automaker could make a small car that was fun to drive. Before that, Detroit automakers begrudgingly made front drive cars and small cars though they hated them. Shelby proved they could be fun. And, as a former advertising copywriter, I also have to take my hat off to Shelby for the way he changed car advertising. When he assigned Pete Brock to write those first Shelby GT350 ads, Brock wrote ads that talked about “decreasing radius turns” and “g-force” — non-nonsense words that real tech guys are interested in. Contrast that to the rest of Detroit, which was still showing swoopy cars with beautiful women, mountain scenery, etc. Of course when Ford’s ad agency took over the advertising later, they went back to the usual formula of babes-and-scenery but Shelby started a trend in advertising that is still found in enthusiast ads (I know he started the trend because in 1967, I worked for Chevy’s ad agency and wrote an ad for the Camaro Z/2 which was inspired by a Shelby ad). Shelby’s business style was always controversial — it was no wonder that they called him the same name that a famed wheeler-dealer Texan had-- “Billy Sol” (after Billy Sol Estes.) But despite his occasional failings, his generosity has been recorded, like donating to hospitals for children (after his own transplant) and starting an educational program for young auto mechanics in a town close to his home town. Carroll Shelby was an enthusiast of the first order, appearing at vintage races, at auctions where significant cars he had owned were sold, and collecting art work depicting his most memorable moments in racing. All over the world there were enthusiasts thrilled to see him come to an event. He did this despite considerable physical obstacles, including a couple of bypass operations, and a kidney transplant. We were especially eager to see his old employees and race car drivers, who once composed that “merry band of men” that shook up sports car and endurance racing. Sometimes, Shelby would want to make an event so bad, he’d sneak out of his hospital bed to do it. When asked what his greatest achievement was recently, he referred to his three children, now in their sixties themselves, but it is a credit to Shelby that, even when divorce loomed while they were still children, he always made sure they knew they could call on him for help, and they, too, have become keepers of his legacy. As a car writer, every so often I look at what cars are out there, and wonder if I should do a book on this one or that, but then I have to lament — damn it, after Shelby, there just aren’t any colorful car creators out there even half the measure of Carroll Shelby. Oh, there’s interesting cars, to be sure, but are the people who designed or engineered them interesting? Not like Shelby. When they created him, it’s God’s truth, they broke the mold... Wallace Wyss is an author of SHELBY: The Man, The Cars, The Legend