He's a legend in the automotive world, a pioneer on and off the track.
In 1954, he broke land speed records at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for Austin Healey, and won the 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans, France, five years later. Those feats, along with many others, landed him in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Carroll Shelby's colourful career has spanned decades; he's a famed race car driver, manufacturer, team manager, consultant and even farmer. At 83, he refuses to slow down.
He also remains well grounded, down to earth, and true to his roots — despite the fact he owns several homes in the United States, along with more than 100 vehicles.
Carroll Shelby's latest creation, the Ford Shelby GT500, boasts 500 horsepower.
His collection includes everything from several Shelby Cobras, Ford Escapes and F-150 pickups, to classic such as a Chrysler Airflow, Model A Ford and 1967 Lincoln Continental convertible.
You may recall Shelby in his prime, clad in striped coveralls — a trademark image he donned after running short of time and wearing his work clothes from his chicken farm to a Texas racing track in 1953.
When the overalls garnered instant attention, he retained the look. Today, he's more comfortable sporting a casual black jacket, striped shirt and baseball cap as he sits in the passenger seat of one of his creations: a 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 with a gut-wrenching, tire-spinning 500 ponies under the hood.
Personally, I'd prefer racing around the autocross at Ford's test track in Dearborn, Mich., with Shelby behind the wheel, but I'll settle with idling on the sidelines, the heat blowing full force on my face and sweat rolling down the small of my back.
Shelby drives a similar vehicle around Las Vegas, where he runs several businesses, including the 300,000-square-foot plant that builds the legendary Shelby Cobras and other limited-edition cars.
"I've got a car like this," he says, patting the dashboard proudly, "with a supercharged six-cylinder.
"If I'm in Las Vegas, we build parts and pieces up at the prison 55 miles away — you get out on the highway and drive as fast as you want to. So I need one of these driving there.
"I'll take it and repaint it so it doesn't look like this — it just looks like an old, beat-up car. I'll take those slick wheels off and I'll have fun with it because people will think it's just an old beater," laughs Shelby, who retired from racing in 1960 because of health problems, then turned to designing one of the fastest cars ever built — the Shelby Cobra, followed by the Shelby Mustang.
While he still drives, loss of vision in his left eye prevents him from taking to the track. "As far as fast driving, I don't any more.
"Especially having to see cones and drive around them, my depth of perception is not there so I don't try smart-assing and do the things I know I can't do. When you're 83, not much works — your eyes get bad, you're slow .ƒ|.ƒ|."
He continues listing his ailments, including a heart transplant in 1990 — the donor a 38-year-old gambler who died of a brain aneurysm — and a kidney he received from his son a few years later.
"But I'm feeling great. I'm a lucky man. I'm a lucky man," boasts the charismatic, blue-eyed grandfather figure who is married to his fourth wife.
Luck has often been on his side. In 1954, Shelby walked away from a close call after hitting a huge rock and flipping his Austin Healey four times.
When he was young, speeding came naturally. "The day I was 14 years old, I got my driver's licence — that was legal in Texas. I asked my dad, who worked down at the post office, if I could take him to work. I took him to work and I got stopped doing 80 miles an hour in this '34 Dodge. I didn't get to drive for six months. Bad boy, wasn't I?" he asks rhetorically, chuckling in a deep, husky tone.
"I got a few tickets, but I haven't got a lot of tickets in my lifetime. I'm a member of 11-99 [a charitable foundation]. I have a thing that gets you out of tickets that I carry in my briefcase.
"[The foundation gives] money, about $5-million [U.S.], away every year — to widows and orphans of highway patrol men killed in action. And unless we run over a kid in a school zone doing 40 to 50 miles an hour, they usually let us go if you've got that little card," says Shelby, who also started the Carroll Shelby Children's Foundation to help kids in need of heart and kidney care.
"I'm not a fast driver. I drove race cars 15 years. I lived in Europe. I don't see any sense in looking in the mirror all the time for a cop. So I don't drive fast."
Whether driving around Las Vegas or southern California, where he receives regular medical treatments, Shelby prefers an automatic over a stick shift.
"When I first went to England back in the early '50s to drive race cars, I said I drive an automatic and they'd make fun of me. And I said, man, I don't want to row a boat around.
"Now, they're all automatic, but it took them 50 years to catch up. Any time you have a place that you have to creep around in traffic like I do so much, I don't want to sit there and row a boat," says Shelby.
While his passion may be cars, his true love is the land. "I'm a farmer, basically. I love the dirt. All day Sunday I'm on my big tractor, pushing dirt. I love to ride the tractor. I love to do everything on the farm. I raise cows, horses, miniature mules, miniature sheep, goats, and guinea fouls — chicken-like wild foul from Africa — all kinds of turkeys and chicken with hair on their legs.
"I just love animals. All the time I can get away, I spend in east Texas with my animals and my farms," says the father of three.
Shelby has seen a lot of changes over the years. And when it comes to cars, one thing impresses him the most. "What strikes me is how much better cars are now than when I started building them in 1962.
"And how the old muscle cars they talk about — that was the golden age — they were a pile of crap. All they did was just have a lot of horsepower and bad chassis and bad brakes.
"And the cars now are all electronic. I really think this day and age is the golden age of the automobile, not the 1960s, because you have electronics now. In fact, you have so many electronics that the electronics do all the thinking for you, darn near it."
That's certainly the case with his prized possession, the Shelby GT500.
