Carroll Shelby Engine Company

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

It is often assumed without Shelbys involvement AC cars would have been done, kaput, game over. I don't think so myself, I think they would have found another way to survive for years to come.

It might be worth noting that AC did the investigation into stuffing a V8 into their Ace chassis before Ford, Shelby or anyone else came calling.

It might be worth noting that Shelby's "development" of the 289 seems to be limited to a joint call from him and Ford to see if a 289 could be made to fit in the Ace chassis - whereupon AC did all the engineering, work and testing and answered "Yup" - then proceeded to build complete rollers that were shipped to Shelby, who *gasp* installed the engines on this side of the pond.

It might be worth noting that the 427 chassis was designed, developed and tested by AC after a similar phone call a year or two later. Ditto on the production.

I do sometimes have trouble distinguishing exactly *what* Unca Carroll did except for final assembly and race tweaking. Why the cars came to be known by the racing team that used them rather than the engineers and factory that built them is a little head-scratching. After all, Gulf didn't go around pounding its chest about "its" great GT-40s.