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car. “
A real ass-kicker
,” as he often
said. He knew that no matter what it
was, it would be compared to the orig-
inal 427 Cobra (his albatross) but he
wanted the car to be clean-sheet-of-
paper new and worthy of his name.
During this time, Shelby was
forced to concentrate on the medical
aspects of his life. Despite his healthy
heart, he was 73 and his age was be-
ginning to show. The President and
Chief Operating Officer of Shelby’s lat-
est businesses was Don Landy, who
had represented himself as a lawyer,
but was without the credentials. He
oversaw the day-to-day operations and
one of his responsibilities was to find
ways to keep Shelby financially
healthy. This included managing
Shelby’s “Original Texas Chili” com-
pany as well as negotiating royalties
for the use of Shelby’s name, trade-
marks and copyrights (name, likeness,
logos and other properties like the
“GT350” and “GT500” names, for ex-
ample). This was more lucrative than
it sounded, as there was no shortage of
model companies wanting to make Co-
bras and Shelby Mustang scale mod-
els, and artists with posters to be
signed. Shelby’s autograph was be-
coming a very desirable thing to have.
There seemed to be no shortage of in-
dividuals and companies lining up to
use Shelby’s name or trademarks on
everything from golf carts to apparel.
Landy and Shelby spoke often and
when Shelby brought up his idea for a
new sports car, Landy was quick to see
that he would need an existing engine
for this new car. He could not go to
Ford (due to an ongoing law suit over
the GT350 name) or Chrysler (they al-
ready had the Viper). The only Ameri-
can manufacturer left was General
Motors. He would have to step lightly
around Chevrolet because the last
thing they wanted was in-house com-
petition for their Corvette. Shelby read
that GM was creating a new 4.6 liter
V8 engine for the Cadillac called the
Northstar. He reasoned that the Cadil-
lac customer base was perfect for a
new, high performance sports car and
Cadillac already had some racing in
its history. If they were looking to
change their stodgy image, Shelby was
just the guy that could do that.
Landy took the ball and ran with
it, but even though he was represent-
ing Carroll Shelby, he wasn’t Shelby.
Cadillac was not interested—but
Oldsmobile might be. They would be
getting their own 4.0-liter version of
the Northstar engine which would
power their new Aurora sedan. John
Rock had recently taken over as the
Oldsmobile Division General Manager
and it was rumored that he was look-
ing for ways to inflate the company’s
sagging image. Olds was planning to
build a special version of the 4.0
Northstar engine for use in the Indy
Racing League series for open wheel
race cars. The timing for a Shelby
sports car proposal seemed perfect.
Landy packed his bag and headed to
Detroit.
The idea of an Oldsmobile pow-
ered sports car built by Carroll Shelby
interested Rock enough to give Landy
an audience. However, Shelby wasn’t
making the pitch – Landy was. Landy
wasn’t an automotive guy, and he sure
as heck wasn’t Carroll Shelby. Rock
was not impressed with him. The pro-
posal, while not being rejected out of
hand, sat on his desk.
Landy reported back to Shelby
that there appeared to be some inter-
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 37