Carroll Shelby

One of a baker’s dozen of American citizens to have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall, Carroll Shelby accomplished the feat 50 years ago this month, driving an Aston Martin DBR1 in company with Roy Salvadori. Shelby had begun racing back in his native Texas shortly after returning from service in WWII. He first drove a car owned by his friend Ed Wilkins in a local drag race, and shortly thereafter won a road race in Ed’s MG-TC to launch his legendary career. Late in 1952 he took a one-off driving assignment for a man named Roy Cherryhomes, who then hired him for the entire 1953 season, Carroll’s first as a professional. He progressed from there, driving for Austin Healey at Bonneville and on the Carrera Panamericana in 1954—smashing his elbow in a misadventure on the latter. Undeterred, by the end of 1955 he’d made his Formula One debut for the Maserati factory team, driving one of their legendary 250Fs. Back in the United States the next year, he ran off a string of victories in John Edgar’s various Ferraris, won the SCCA National Championship, and was named Sports Illustrated’s Driver of the Year. More success followed in 1957, when he repeated as SCCA champ driving Edgar’s Maseratis, and by Sebring in the spring of ’58 he was wheeling a factory Aston Martin, paired for the first time with Salvadori. Their partnership endured for two seasons, highlighted by their success at Le Mans. In 1960, he took USAC’s national road racing crown, victorious in both a Camoradi Birdcage Maserati and a Meister Brauser Scarab, and was again named Driver of the Year, an excellent cap for his career. Vintage Racecar associate editor John Zimmermann spoke with Shelby about that weekend in France half a century ago when he scored the most important victory of his career in the biggest sports car race of them all.

Heading into the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours, the Aston Martin team chose to make no performance upgrades to its DBR1, simply concentrating on reliability and some aero tweaking, but at the prerace test day the car turned out to be well off the pace. What did you think about this strategy?