Ford, Shelby American, Ford Racing and their friends have joined forces to build a unique 2013 Shelby GT500 Cobra as a tribute to the late Carroll Shelby.
Cobra has been the consistent performance label as Shelby worked with Ford for most of the past 60 years, and Shelby was instrumental in the creation of Ford performance vehicles including Cobras, the GT40 and Mustangs since the mid-1960s.
The special tribute car was unveiled by Edsel Ford II, Ford's group vice president for sales and marketing Jim Farley, and Shelby American president John Luft at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion where Cobra is the marque of show for 2012.
630KW
Using the 488kW 2013 Shelby GT500 as a base, they created the one-of-a-kind 2013 Shelby GT500 Cobra wide-body Mustang that now generates more than 630kW with the help of a Ford Racing 4.0-litre Whipple supercharger.
Putting that much power to the ground requires plenty of traction, so the 330mm rear wheels are wrapped in massive 345-section high-performance tyres for extra grip.
Ford teamed up with Shelby American for several key components on the tribute car. Shelby American provided a specially designed bonnet, new rear wide-body kit, Wilwood brakes and new 20” rims. The body is finished in Shelby's signature blue with white stripes that graced so many of the Cobra roadsters built in the 1960s.
Shelby was also a philanthropist, noted for supporting causes that moved him. In that spirit, Luft said, this car would be taken on tour around the country, and would then be used in a special way, a way Shelby would have appreciated.
THE CARROLL SHELBY WAY
“Carroll Shelby changed the performance world forever,” Luft said. “He was proud of his company's achievements - but he was always far more interested in the next car!”
For more than half a century, Carroll Shelby inspired designers and engineers at Ford; as a teenager, Edsel Ford II worked for Shelby doing a variety of jobs, including cleaning gearbox parts.
Dozens of engineers worked with him over the years, from those who crafted the original GT40 to those working on the 2013 Shelby GT500. To the last, Shelby remained committed to developing performance cars. Late in 2011 - at the age of 88 - he spent more than five hours driving the most powerful production Mustang ever built during test sessions at Sebring and the Arizona Proving Grounds ate 2011.
During and after the test sessions, Carroll spent hours discussing with the engineers what he liked and pointing out bluntly what he felt needed improvement. Nobody who worked with Shelby, they said, would ever forget it.