Legendary Le Mans Winner and Collectible Car Manufacturer, Carroll Shaelby, Dies

By Steel Trap on May 11, 2012

It’s a sad day for anyone who has ever enjoyed anything sporting four wheels. The legendary car designer and champion auto racer, Carroll Shelby, who built the fabled Shelby Cobra sports car and gave Ford’s Mustang and Dodge’s Viper their growl, has died at age 89.

Shelby’s company, Carroll Shelby International, said Friday that Shelby died the night before at a Dallas hospital. Doctors have not released a cause of death.

“We are all deeply saddened, and feel a tremendous sense of loss for Carroll’s family, ourselves and the entire automotive industry,” said Joe Conway, president of Carroll Shelby International, Inc. and board member. “There has been no one like Carroll Shelby and never will be. However, we promised Carroll we would carry on, and he put the team, the products and the vision in place to do just that.”

Shelby was one of the nation’s longest-living heart transplant recipients, having received a heart on June 7, 1990, from a 34-year-old man who died of an aneurysm. Shelby also received a kidney transplant in 1996 from his son, Michael.

The 1992 inductee into the Automobile Hall of Fame had homes in Los Angeles and his native east Texas.

The one-time chicken farmer had more than a half-dozen successful careers during his long life. Among them: champion race car driver, racing team owner, automobile manufacturer, automotive consultant, safari tour operator, raconteur, chili entrepreneur and philanthropist.

“He’s an icon in the medical world and an icon in the automotive world,” his longtime friend, Dick Messer, executive director of Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum, once said of Shelby.

“His legacy is the diversity of his life,” Messer said. “He’s incredibly innovative. His life has always been the reinvention of Carroll Shelby.”

Shelby first made his name behind the wheel of a car, winning France’s grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race with teammate Ray Salvadori in 1959. He already was suffering serious heart problems and ran the race “with nitroglycerin pills under his tongue,” Messer once noted.

Not 10 years later, he would lead the team of GT40s to get Henry Ford II three victories over Ferrari at LeMans in one of the most expensive pissing contests on record (an estimated $1 billion in today’s money). Shelby’s AC Cobras and the Mustangs that followed are now highly collectible.

Yours truly was lucky enough to meet him at Barret-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale, AZ. Using a press pass, I cut a long line just to shake hands and say hello. He was gracious and patient with me as I thanked him for his time and all his automotive accomplishments. Our encounter, and the demonstration of the Shelby GT500 were the highlights of my trip. R.I.P. to the performance king and champion.