- One Million Subscribers!
Thank you so much, you guys are awesome!
But not a single one of us, is as awesome as this guy!
- My name's Carroll Shelby, and performance is my business.
(engine rev)
- The Cobra!
The Daytona!
The GT350!
You ever heard of them?
Of course you've freaken heard of them!
Grab a snack, and a chair,
because Papa's gonna tell you babies a story!
The story of one of my idols.
He's an American Hero.
From humble beginnings in East Texas,
to kicking butt around the world.
This man, did it all!
This is everything you need to know,
to get up to speed on Carroll (beep) Shelby!
(80s game music)
Carroll Hall Shelby was born in 1923, in Leesburg Texas.
His Dad was a mailman, and his Mom stayed at home
to look after the babies.
What I'm saying is, they didn't have a lot of money.
Just like my Dad.
To make matters worse, Carroll was kind of a sick kid.
Much like your boy!
I had asthma, but he had a heart condition
that kept him in bed for most of his childhood.
But once he got older,
the doctors gave him a clean bill of health,
and he was out of the house tearing apart go-cart engines
and learning everything he could,
about things that went vroom vroom vroom.
(engine rev and breaking)
When the US got pulled into dub dub two,
he joined the Army Air Corps where he trained pilots,
and probably went on a bunch of secret missions,
knowing Carroll.
One afternoon when the Serg wasn't looking,
Carroll hopped in a trainer plane, and took off.
He flew for miles until he was over the house of his crush,
and dropped a love letter into her front yard.
(awe)
A year later they were married.
Good move Gene!
Coincidentally, I delivered my divorce papers
to Jessica's house with a tomahawk missile.
(explosion)
Bullseye!
After the war, Carroll went looking for a new line of work.
He tried his hand in the dump truck game,
and he even worked in the oil fields as a roughneck.
Which, I've tried, and it sucks!
I told my boss my neck was getting all rough,
and he was like "Yeah, it's in the name."
And I was all "Oh, that makes sense,
now that I think about it,
I'm kind of embarrassed for bringing it up.
You know what?
I appreciate the opportunity, I don't think this is for me.
I'm gonna go try and make car videos.
Do you guys validate parking?
I'm in the orange lot."
When those jobs didn't work out,
Carroll got into chicken farming.
Where, it turns out, he made a nice little chunk of change.
It was around this time,
that he also started pursing his real passion,
racing.
Shelby put his Texas charm to good use,
and convinced a friend to let him
drive his MG TC streetcar on the track.
In his first time out in the puny British roadster,
with a wooden frame,
he beat the entire field of race-prepped competitors.
Just like that, he was hooked on winning.
Mere hours later, he entered another race,
full of faster, Jaguar, XK120's, you know, for fun!
And against all odds, he drove the little MG to victory,
beating cars with twice the horsepower.
If it wasn't clear before, it was now.
Carroll Shelby knew a thing or two about going fast.
People were fascinated by this man.
He was on an entirely new level from anyone else.
Carroll would go on to drive for
Aston Martin at Sebring and Leman,
and set Bonneville land speed records
for Austin-Healey later that year.
He continued racing and winning through the 50s,
and by 1959 he was looking to win in a car of his own design
kinda like me, in the Pumphrey 502.
(classical music)
We never got a shot, you know?
Carroll was a big Chevy fan,
and really wanted their help to develop
a new lightweight V8 powered racing platform.
So he hit them up, and he was like
"Guys, I'm a big Chevy fan,
and I'd like your help to develop a new,
lightweight, V8 powered, racing platform"
and Chevy was like "Okay, cool, here's three corevettes."
And Carroll was all "I'm gonna keep the guts over here,
and work on'em with all my buddies.
And I'm sending the chassis over to Italy
to get some new skin."
"What?"
"There's this guy, Sergio Scaglietti.
Literally, this dude makes the best skins."
"What the hell does he mean by skin?"
"I bet he's got a snake fetish."
"You think everyone has a snake fetish."
What came back were three of the classiest corvettes
ever made!
The Corvette Scaglietti.
But, Chevy passed, while the Scaglietti's were being built.
GM had decided to ban their brands from racing all together.
It was the 1960 season,
and the heart condition Carroll had suffered as a kid,
had returned.
In his final race, at the Continental Divide Raceway,
Carroll had a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue,
to deal with the chest pain.
Despite this, the dude (bleep) won!
It wasn't easy, but Carroll made peace with the fact,
that this would be his last season as a driver.
Thanks for watching Up to Speed, that's the story
of Carroll Shelby What?
Shorter than usual?
Just freaken kidding!
Just because he stopped racing,
didn't mean he was done with motorsport.
He opened his own racing school,
and was soon wheeling and dealing
to develop his own race car!
And this time, nothing would stop him!
First he called Astin Martin, they were like "No."
Then he caught word that another British company, AC,
had lost the engine supplier for their
Ace Bristol Roadster.
This was great news.
Shelby was obsessed with the idea of
an American V8 powered roadster,
beating the European competition.
And he figured a car like the ACE
would be the perfect candidate.
All he needed was an engine.
Shelby went back to Chevrolet,
to see if they were interested, they weren't.
So, he went elsewhere for help.
Elsewhere being Chevy's biggest rival.
Carroll heard through the grapevine,
that Ford was developing a new V8,
and Ford loved Shelby's idea of building a race car,
that could beat the 'vette.
They were on board, and Shelby was on Ford.
(clapping)
AC sent Carroll an Ace Roller to his shop,
in Venice, California.
When the smoke cleared, Shelby's obsession was manifested,
and the AC Cobra, (snake hiss) was born!
The combination of lightweight British engineering,
and brute American strength was ferocious!
Just like Nolan at a Dairy Queen.
But the best for the Shelby snake was yet to come!
Shelby had already won Lemans as a driver.
Now, he wanted to go back to France and win again.
This time, as the guy who built the car!
And that car, was the Cobra!
But, just like a math quiz, there was a problem.
The Cobra was perfectly suited
for the tracks here in the US, but,
at Leman, the Cobra was an average
10 seconds a lap slower than the slippery Ferrlalis.
(laughing)
Carroll was not a fan of being slower than other people.
So he ordered a young engineer named Pete Brock,
to come up with a solution.
While Carroll was a big believer in horsepower,
the subtle nuances of aerodynamics,
weren't exactly his forte.
Pete took the body off of one of their Cobra's at the shop
and got to work on a new design.
It had radical aerodynamic features,
like an aggressive ducktail spoiler,
and an absolutely flat rear-end.
Jessica!
One day, Carroll brought an airplane engineer friend
to the shop, and the dude straight up told Pete,
that the car wouldn't work.
To his face!
After the guy left, Carroll goes to Pete, and he goes
"Pete, you wanna change anything?"
And Pete was all "Nope."
"Straight up, respect.
But I'm gonna be honest with you,
if this thing doesn't work, you're fired."
They took the car dubbed the Daytona Coupe
out to Riverside International Raceway for some testing.
After a warmup lap, lead test driver, Ken Miles,
put the hammer down and beat their Cobra track record,
by three and a half seconds!
(engine rev)
Pete had done it!
And Carroll could now take the fight to Ferrari!
(whip swooshing)
"Your dates are over mister!"
1964, the Cards' beat the Yankees in the series,
buffalo wings are invented, and
team Shelby American went across the pond to France,
with their new car in tow.
They entered the Daytona in the GT class,
where it would face off against Porsche,
Alfa Romeo's, Lotusi, and of course,
the Ferrari 250 GTO.
(engine rev)
The sleek body allowed the Daytona to hit
186 miles an hour down the Mulsanne straight.
And the ducktail glued the rear end to the pavement,
giving drivers Bob Bondurant and Dan Gurney,
immense confidence in the turns.
When the race was over, the Daytona had finished,
a lap ahead of the closest Ferrari,
giving Shelby the class victory.
The win was a reminder to the world,
that the Shelby name, meant the winners circle.
To commemorate the win,
Shelby wanted to make the Cobra even faster!
Like a good'ole Texan, Carroll wanted an even bigger V8
in his prized roadster.
So Shelby teamed up with Ford again,
and together they set out to design a new Cobra.
The fenders would be flared out,
to make room for wider tires.
And the grill would be opened up into a gaping maw,
to help with cooling.
To make this car a touch easier to drive,
this Cobra would be fitted with coil spring suspension.
- That's fancy!
- Real fancy!
- The updated Mark 3 Cobra was so different,
than the previous models,
that only the hood, trunk, and windshield,
were shared between them.
The Mark 3's crown jewel, lived under it's hood.
Ford's most advanced engine of the time.
The 427.
What the?
Sorry, sorry, I was just trying to help.
This, humongous seven liter V8 made 485 horsepower
and pushed the tiny Cobra to a blistering 185 miles an hour!
(engine rev)
That same year, 1965, Carroll got the ball rolling,
on another legendary Shelby creation.
The GT350.
Shelby American took the pony car,
and they made it a freaken thoroughbred.
They focused most of their attention on handling,
but also, boosted the output by 35 horsepower.
(engine rev)
Wow.
The GT350's finishing touch was this sinister looking,
and functional, hood scoop on the front.
All it needed was a name.
The Cobra (snake hiss)
The car was designed for SCCA Sportscar Racing,
and since it was a Shelby,
It dominated!
Lightning, lightning, lightning, lightning!
Like this video if you like lighting a million times!
After the GT350, Carroll and the team,
found time to help their friends at Ford win Leman,
with the GT40.
If you wanna know more about that story,
check out this episode right here.
I cry in it.
Ford continued using the Shelby name
on their special edition Mustangs
but Carroll's team wasn't doing
a lot development on the cars.
In fact, working with Ford directly on production cars,
was pretty stressful, and they ended the partnership in 1969
All of the wheeling and dealing and racing
for the past 30 years had taken a toll on old Carroll.
He was exhausted.
So he did what all the great do when they're overwhelmed.
He took some time off in Africa.
He just needed a vacation, like me!
Matt?
He also made chili powder, which you can still buy today.
Available, on amazon, for 10 dollars.
When he got back to the states,
he was feeling good, and at ease.
That was until Detroit came calling once again in 1982.
Except this time, it wasn't Ford, but Chrysler.
When Carroll was working on the GT350,
he met a guy named Lee Iacocca,
the genius largely responsible for the mustang.
Now, his old buddy Lee was in charge of Chrysler,
and he was in a bind.
He wanted to develop performance models for Dodge
but no one at the company knew how to do it!
So Lee called Carroll up and he was like
"Carroll, I'm in a bind, I wanna develop performance models
for Dodge, but no one at my company knows how to do it."
The age of muscle cars was long gone,
so now all Shelby had to work with
were turbo charged four bangers.
Like the Omni Hatchback, and Charger Coupe.
At first, Carroll was just a consultant,
but soon, he and his team
were getting their hands all over them little cars!
The Omni GLH or "Goes Like Hell" was already pretty quick.
In fact, it was the fastest hatchback in the world,
at the time.
(cheerful music)
But Shelby did it one better, the Omni GLHS, or
"Goes like hell s'more" made 175 horsepower,
which was a lot for the time in an itty bitty car like that.
(engine rev)
The Omni sister car, the Charger GLHS,
was basically a two door version,
and did the quarter mile in 16 seconds
at 86 miles an hour.
Again, very fast at the time.
Back then, 50 bucks was like a lot of money.
Believe me, it was fast.
The Dodge Swings were a far cry from the race cars
Carroll made his name building, and everyone knew it.
Looking back on the project, he said
"I got so much crap building those little hot rods,
but you know what?
I had fun doing it."
And the fact that he said that,
is why he's so important to us.
Carroll took another break to get his head right,
and chill out.
And he did, he got so chill you guys.
But like a vagabond father who shoes up
with Christmas presents in June,
Dodge came calling again.
This time, to work on a real sports car.
The project would be Chrysler's middle finger to the world,
screaming "Hey,
we still know how to make a bad ass race car!"
Iacocca's buddies Bob Lutz, and Tom Gale
were putting a team together to build a car,
in the spirit of Shelby's own Cobra.
They couldn't call it the Cobra, obviously,
so they chose another snake name.
- [Announcer] And here it is, the Dodge Viper.
- Which you can learn more about right here.
Shelby himself showed the Viper
as the 1991 Indy 500's pace car,
where apparently he played this really cool prank,
where he pretended to have a heart attack behind the wheel
at 125 miles an hour,
and he scared the (beep) out of the passenger.
Another reason, I love this guy!
Then, in 2002 Shelby found himself at home,
for the first time since 1969.
Ford was working on a new GT and they thought,
who better bring on board,
than the savior of the original GT40?
The partnership also produced a new Cobra concept,
that used the GT's running gear, except in the front.
That concept never went into production, but,
at it's debut, Shelby proclaimed,
"I'm gonna end my car building days where I started them."
The partnership continued with the debut
of the 2007 Shelby GT500.
The first Mustang to wear Shelby's name in 35 years!
It made 500 horsepower, and looked good as hell doin' it.
(engine rev)
On top of that, you could send your GT500
to Shelby's plant in Los Vegas to get the,
surprise, surprise, super snake treatment,
where it was upgraded to over 600 horsepower.
Carroll may have been old, but he still loved power.
(engine rev)
The Mustang got a redesign in 2010,
and with it came a new GT500.
At 87 years old, Carroll knew he didn't have much time,
to leave one more mark on the world of power and performance
The last GT500 Carroll touched would make 662 horsepower,
and do 202 miles an hour, in a Mustang!
- Are you crying?
- It was the most radical Shelby creation in years,
and rightfully, it blew peoples' minds.
It was a fitting send off, for the legend,
that was Carroll Shelby.
Around the same time as the GT500's release,
Carroll passed away at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas,
on May 10th 2012.
About 100 miles from his birthplace in Leesburg.
Shelby's influence on the automotive world,
cannot be un- cannot be overstated.
He didn't have (beep), but destroyed people who did.
And that's why I'm proud to call him my Dad.
A little over a year ago, we were a pretty small channel,
and now thanks to you, you guys!
I'm talking about you, guy, or girl watching this!
You've made it the one million subscribers!
So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Donut means everything to me, it's all because of you,
that we get to make things.
It's for you and because of you.
And I promise that me and the 15 other amazing people,
that work here, most of whom you guys never see,
will continue to stay up late and work on weekends,
and bring you guys the stuff that you like.
And we'll continue to listen to you,
to figure out what you want, so, thank you.
Um, if you wanna buy this shirt, I got a shop.
Dot donut dot media.
Watch these episodes.
I really love you, thank you.
(applause)