Carrol Shelby, 1923-2012.
Go like hell.
UPDATE: Original post made from The Salt Mines on my cell, so no links.
Carroll Shelby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carroll Shelby, Creator of Cobra Sports Car, Dead at 89 - Driver's Seat - WSJ
Thus far, I have few real regrets in life. Passing on the Omni GLH1 I found in the used car lot up the street from Mrs. Drang's house when we first started dating, and not hanging on to the 68 Mustang2 with the 318 Cobra Jet I bought as a commuter for my summer job at Chrysler's while in college are two. For the first I had no need of a second car, and for the Mustang, well, there is no way I could have invested the time, money , or effort to rebuild that, um, rusty, abused thing.
1. "GLH"="Goes Like Hell"--a turbo-charged 4-banger econo-box! With no external signs of that, if you overlooked that air intake in the hood.
2. Among other things, the preferred method of dealing with snowy and icey roads in Southern Michigan at the time was to liberally apply sodium chloride, and this had been a "winter car", so it was pretty "holey"--I lost some fishing gear from the trunk that way. Also, the engine mounts were bad, and the water pump vibrated so much the fan mounting bolts had cut the mounting holes into slots--it was several cut water hoses before I figured that out. The headlights worked, but the dash lights didn't, nor did the fuel gauge. Yeah, I sure do miss that car...
2 comments:
Aw man, another of my hero's gone.
I always appreciated how he took a performance approach to cars instead of a chincy one. I remember reading somewhere that he overheard some engineers trying to come up with a cool name for a Mustang they were working on, and Shelby asked how far away a distant building was and the answer he got was "about 350 feet," so Shelby told them to name the car the GT350. Worked like a charm!
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