In what would have been his 100th year, racing icon, team manager and car manufacturer Carroll Shelby is to be celebrated at this year’s Goodwood Revival gathering.
The annual event, designed to revel in the ‘romance and glamour of motor racing as it used to be’, takes place 8-10 September 2023 at the Goodwood Circuit near Chichester, West Sussex.
And this year the focus will turn to Texas-born entrepreneur Shelby, who passed away in 2012 aged 89 years old.
In case you’re not familiar with Shelby’s life, he was a man who went from a post-war chicken farmer to one of America’s greatest automotive icons.
He was famously played by actor Matt Damon in the 2019 movie Le Mans '66.
Shelby first started racing in the early 1950s, borrowing his mate’s MG TC, before being invited to drive for the Aston Martin and Maserati factory teams.
In 1959, he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans - in an Aston Martin DBR1 - becoming only the second ever American to have done so, before retiring due to poor health shortly after.
By the early 1960s, Shelby had struck on a plan - he began to import an English roadster, the AC ‘Ace’, made in Surrey, to America, where he set about overhauling it so it could compete with the Corvette racers of the day.
He slapped a whopping great Ford V8 engine in the Ace… and birthed the Shelby Cobra, his signature car.
Shelby was, of course, also inextricably linked with the Ford Mustang, and there were countless incarnations of Shelby-badged Mustangs between the late 1960s and now.
The most recent, last year’s Shelby GT500 Code Red - built by Shelby American - boasts a 5.2 litre V8 with power of more than 1,300 hp!
A spokesperson for the Goodwood Revival says:
“Shelby’s impact on motor racing can be seen each and every year at the Revival, and 2023 will be no different, as an assortment of Cobras – the Anglo-American sports cars for which he is best known – are set to take to the track in the all-star Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration.
“Meanwhile, the Whitsun Trophy will host a number of examples of the Ford GT40, whose design Shelby played such an integral part in refining.
“As Goodwood celebrates 75 years of the Motor Circuit, and 25 years of the Revival, it’s a chance to reflect on the motorsport legends who have joined us over the years. Carroll Shelby is no exception, having raced at Goodwood during the Circuit’s heyday in arguably one of the most important and dramatic races in the annals of British motorsport: the 1959 RAC Tourist Trophy.
“This race saw him share the winning DBR1/300 with his co-drivers Jack Fairman and Stirling Moss – the latter a late addition after his own car was eliminated in a spectacular fire during a routine pit stop. Earlier in the season, Shelby had won Le Mans, sharing the same DBR1 with Roy Salvadori, and victory in the Tourist Trophy secured the World Championship for Aston Martin.”
Aaron Shelby, board member of Carroll Shelby International, adds:
“Goodwood held a very special place in my grandfather’s heart.”
Tickets for the Goodwood Revival start from £67.
Meanwhile, ahead of the mew Ford Mustang being released later this year, you can lease the current Ford Mustang with Select Car Leasing from around £709 per month. Prices correct as of 11/01/2023.
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