Shelby Mustang: Racer for the Street

When Ford wanted to add some spice to its new Mustang pony car in the mid-1960s, it turned to the talented, colorful, and opinionated Texan Carroll Shelby, who was then building the high-performance, Ford-powered Cobra racing sports car . The result: the Shelby Mustang GT350, perhaps the definitive performance Mustang of the muscle car era.

Ford released its newest Mustang in 2005, the first truly all-new Mustang since 1979, returning the model to the spotlight. The most-talked-about versions of the new Mustang have been those with the Shelby name. Shelby himself was directly involved in defining what is the most powerful factory-produced Mustang ever. This up-to-the-minute history from award-winning authors Randy Leffingwell and David Newhardt traces the Shelby Mustang story from the early Shelby American cars built in a converted airplane hangar in Southern California to the 2010 version of the new Shelby Mustang.