Cobra king Carroll Shelby dies at 89

(FILES): This April 15, 2004 file photo shows Carroll Shelby sitting on a 1968 GT500 KR during the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Ford Mustang at the Nashville Super Speedway in Lebanon, Tennessee. Shelby, the greatest single influence on America's racing posture in the post-1945 period with help in the engine design and racing operations of the Mustang, died May 10, 2012 at the age of 89. AFP PHOTO / Files / Jeff HAYNES

(FILES): This April 15, 2004 file photo shows Carroll Shelby sitting on a 1968 GT500 KR during the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Ford Mustang at the Nashville Super Speedway in Lebanon, Tennessee. Shelby, the greatest single influence on America's racing posture in the post-1945 period with help in the engine design and racing operations of the Mustang, died May 10, 2012 at the age of 89. AFP PHOTO / Files / Jeff HAYNES

Published May 14, 2012

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Racing driver and automobile manufacturer extraordinary Carroll Shelby, who created the best known US sports cars of the 1960s - the AC Cobra and the Shelby Mustang - has died, aged 89.

Carroll Shelby International hailed its founder as “a man whose vision for performance transformed the automobile industry”.

It said he’d died on Thursday of an undisclosed illness at Baylor Hospital in Dallas in his native Texas.

One of the top racing drivers in the United States after the Second World War, he crowned an outstanding career when he and legendary British driver Roy Salvadori won the 24 Hours of Le Mans classic in an Aston Martin in 1959.

COMBINATION OF POWER AND SPEED

At the end of the 1960 season, however, Shelby was forced to retire due to a heart condition and turned to building cars, starting in 1962, when he wedged a huge Ford V8 engine into a lightweight British-made AC roadster to give birth to the AC Cobra.

This combination of power and speed tore up the racetrack, enabling the Cobra to win in its category at Le Mans.

Impressed, Ford entrusted Shelby with the development of its GT40 race car, which ended Ferrari's supremacy at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1966 and again in 1967.

SHELBY MUSTANG

Shelby was also the father of the special Ford Mustang series, the GT350 and the GT500, built at the end of the 1960s.

Overflowing with power and featuring aggressive bodies, these muscle cars have become highly sought after by automobile collectors.

Regularly updated, the Shelby Mustang GT500 is still the top of Ford's line of sports coupes in the United States. - AFP

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