Rinsey Mills - Carroll Shelby: The Authorized Biography

The authorized biography

Rinsey Mills

O riginally published just a few weeks before Carroll Shelby died on May 10, 2012, Carroll Shelby: The Authorized Biography was a long time in the making and no stone was left unturned in the quest to produce the complete study of a remarkable life. With Carrolls enthusiastic collaboration, author Rinsey Mills carried out extensive research and conducted numerous interviews not just with Carroll himself but also with family, friends, and those who worked with him.

In this book, Carrolls early years are explored in detail: growing up in Texas, joining the U.S. Army Air Forces during wartime, and dabbling in early entrepreneurship after the war in the form of trucking and poultry-rearing businesses. But then he discovered car racing and achieved his first race wins in 1952.

For the rest of that decade, Carroll had a glittering international career as a racing driver. Many of his race wins were in Ferraris and Maseratis, but his biggest success came in 1959 with a works Aston Martin when he and Roy Salvadori won the Le Mans 24 Hours. He was a truly versatile competitor, from record-breaking at Bonneville to Mexican road racing on the Carrera Panamericana.

A significant moment came in 1957, when he opened Carroll Shelby Sports Cars in Dallas. Gradually there emerged a dreamto build his own sports carand it became a reality when the legendary Cobra was born in 1962, with Shelby American being created to manufacture and race the cars.

With Fords backing, Shelby American went on to achieve a formidable array of track successes, first with Cobras in roadster and Daytona Coupe forms and then with Ford GT40s, which won twice at Le Mans under Carrolls expert management. Ford also asked him to wave his magic wand on the Mustang and the GT350 was created, starting another Shelby bloodline that continues to this day.

Carrolls life away from cars was just as packed, and all aspects are covered: his numerous interests (from farming to flying), his health issues (including a heart transplant), his globetrotting (including his lost years in Africa), and much more.

This magnificent book is a lasting tribute to one of the great automotive figures of the twentieth century.

By Edsel B. Ford II

S helby. The name itself conjures up immediate visions of Cobras, GT350s and GT500s pounding around an historic road course with throaty horsepower coming from under the hood and tires on the edge of adhesion.

But for me personally, the Shelby name will always mean much more.

I have been blessed to have known Carroll since I was a teenager, walking the pit road with my father at Le Mans during Fords first major assault on Ferrari in 1966.

By then, he was already a legend in my eyes having had great success as a race driver for companies like Aston Martin and Maserati during the 1950s and being named Sports Illustrateds Driver of the Year in 1956 and 1957.

So when I first met Carroll at Le Mans, as his Shelby American race team was preparing the GT40s for Ford Motor Company, I was thrilled to meet the man who has since become a life-long friend.

Subsequently I worked for him during a summer break while I was in college. He taught me to take apart and rebuild transmissions and gave me the opportunity to spend some time with him, taking in the wisdom that is truly Carroll.

The name Shelby means so many things to so many people, but to me, Carroll is an innovator. He is a man who was always ahead of his time, who has created, designed and developed performance products that have been second to none. The fact that most of them have been with and for Ford Motor Company is a personal point of pride for me.

Carroll is passionate about performance vehicles, but he is also passionate about life, his family, and his many, many friends that he has made in the 60-plus years he has been involved in our industry.

Cynthia, my boys and I are proud to be counted among them.

Y oung Carroll Shelby got three whippings that day. It was the day his sister was due to be born, and Birdie, Bertha and Rena, the three black women who worked for the family, were getting things ready.

I suppose I was getting in the way so they whipped me out of the house and I ran off down to a cotton patch and hid, but Rena came and found me, pulled up a cotton stalk, and whipped me back home. She was mad and I was mad and I ran off again and crawled in under the house, right back into a dark place where she couldnt get to me. After a while I came out, but by that time my mother was trying to have my sister, and Rena was busy helping as midwifeso they sent me off to a friends house.

All of us kids were playing and, I dont know why, but I went outside and picked up a horse turd. I sneaked it back into the house and put it on top of one of those little iron stoves, like they have in East Texas. When I thought it was cooked, both sides, I gave it to one of the Finn boys and said, Eat thishis dad, Miller, whipped me right out of there. By the time I got back home I had a sister.

Carroll was just over three and a half years old and hed been born in the same house, on January 11th, 1923. It was the home that his parentswho were both from Mount Vernon, 20 or so miles awayhad moved into shortly after theyd got married in the spring of 1922.

His father, Warren Hall Shelby, known as Hall, had been born in 1897: his father had a farm that ran to nearly 500 acres and grew mainly ribbon cane. During the First World War Hall had tried to enlist in the United States Navy but had been unable to do so due to his poor eyesight, so had joined the Merchant Marine instead, whose physical requirements were less stringent.

His mother Etoise Shelby (ne Lawrence), born in 1903, also came from farming stock, she and her younger brother Morris being the issue of their fathers second marriage.