Top 32 Quotes & Sayings by Carroll Shelby

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American designer Carroll Shelby.

Last updated on December 22, 2024.

Carroll Hall Shelby was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified during the late 1960s and early 2000s. He established Shelby American in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles. His autobiography, The Carroll Shelby Story, was published in 1967. As a race car driver, his highlight was as a co-driver of the winning 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans entry.

American - Designer | January 11, 1923 - May 10, 2012

Source: Wikipedia

What I wanted to do was build an automobile.

Carroll Shelby

Racing has reached the point where it is pricing the young driver, no matter his talent, out of the game.

Carroll Shelby

I love horsepower.

Carroll Shelby

I'm a terrible husband.

Carroll Shelby

I don't think I'm a celebrity. I'm just a guy from east Texas who loves cars and airplanes.

Carroll Shelby

I've got cattle on 4,000 acres about 100 miles east of Dallas, but I've also got another 65-acre ranch where I raise American miniature horses.

Carroll Shelby

I never made a damn dime until I started doing what I wanted.

Carroll Shelby

I never had ambitions to see how rich I could get. I got a lot of contemporaries that that's their ambition, and I don't know very many of them that are happy.

Carroll Shelby

Driving race cars was an avenue for me to learn how to build my own car, and that was my ambition all along.

Carroll Shelby

It's a massive motor in a tiny, lightweight car.

Carroll Shelby

The reason I moved to California the first time was to build the Cobra. I thought it was stupid to have a 1918 taxicab engine in what Europeans like to call a performance car when a little American V-8 could do the job better.

Carroll Shelby

Porsche and BMW drivers are arrogant.

Carroll Shelby

The first time I walked by a crap table, I felt kind of funny.

Carroll Shelby

I didn't have time for my children much. I wasn't a very good parent; I had a pretty unhappy home life.

Carroll Shelby

I've always been asked, 'What is my favorite car?' and I've always said 'The next one.'

Carroll Shelby

Every morning I wake up with new ideas.

Carroll Shelby

I'm not going to take this defeatist attitude and listen to all this crap any more from all these people who have nothing except doomsday to predict.

Carroll Shelby

My proudest moments are beating Ferrari for the World Championship in 1965, and working with Ford to win Le Mans in 1966 and 1967.

Carroll Shelby

In 1964, when Lee Iacocca said, 'Shelby, I want you to make a sports car out of the Mustang,' the first thing I said was, 'Lee, you can't make a race horse out of a mule. I don't want to do it.' He said, 'I didn't ask you to make it; you work for me.'

Carroll Shelby

I had a lot of fun driving race cars, but it wasn't my No. 1 priority.

Carroll Shelby

I don't design cars. I'm not a designer. I know what I desire to be built, I know what the end result is, the horsepower, the competition we'll be working against - but I leave it to the people who work with me to put it all together. I don't do anything.

Carroll Shelby

The Cobra is my personal favorite car. The original 289 Cobra is the car I respect the most. I like to drive the 289 better than the 427.

Carroll Shelby

I've had a good run. I've built a lot of things that work and a lot of things that didn't work.

Carroll Shelby

If you don't go do what you wanna do, you're just bullshitting yourself.

Carroll Shelby

There is never enough horsepower......just not enough traction.

Carroll Shelby

The day you were born, it was already written down the day you're gonna check out. Now, I'm not gonna throw myself under a truck, but I'm not gonna worry about when I die. I'm ready to move on when that day comes.

Carroll Shelby

I love raising animals. I look at animals as more perfect human beings. I can relate to an animal.

Carroll Shelby

It was fun to blow off a Porsche with a 3900 donkey [the 1965 Shelby GT350 Mustang].

Carroll Shelby

Thank god there's no 48-hour race anywhere in the world, because chances are nobody could beat Porsche in a 48 hour race. They're probably the only cars in the world that would stand up for something like that.

Carroll Shelby

Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races

Carroll Shelby

Yesterday's History. Tomorrow's a Mystery. So live for today.

Carroll Shelby

Any man that eats Chili and Cornbread can't be all bad

Carroll Shelby