Book Review: " Shelby Cars in Detail "

[Don]

New York Times Book Review

SHELBY CARS IN DETAIL

By Frank Barrett. Photographs by Boyd Jaynes

156 color photographs. 272 pages. David Bull Publishing. $149.95.

The supremely competent and now-legendary cars of Carroll Shelby deserve a chronicle of significance, and “Shelby Cars in Detail” provides it in gorgeous excess. More than a foot square and of considerable heft, the book is superbly researched by Frank Barrett, with breathtaking photography by Boyd Jaynes.

The book focuses on the milestone cars of the Shelby American Collection in Boulder, Colo. The collection offers a definitive cross section of significant Shelby cars, from 15 formidable Cobras and a demure A.C. Ace-Bristol roadster on which they were all based to a progression of exquisite Daytona coupes and GT40s that eventually beat Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With often personal accounts of real cars, Mr. Barrett adroitly weaves together two distinct, but equally seductive tales. The first is a fascinating chronology of Shelby racing, yarns about dusty drag strips and obscure tracks as well as storied campaigns by the Shelby American team at Europe’s most hallowed, Champagne-soaked circuits. The other account that threads its way through “Shelby Cars in Detail” is one of unceasing improvement, clever, constant technical development that meant each Shelby car was better and slightly different from the last.

With a wink, the book includes a lone Ferrari, a 410 Sport Scaglietti. After all, Carroll Shelby garnered his first national championship in this brutal-looking machine, and it no doubt influenced him as he began to think about developing an unbeatable Cobra.

Every Shelby owner should own this book. So should every car enthusiast who ever dreamed about racing down a back road or a back straight in one of these living legends. FRED HEILER