Carroll Shelby Quotations

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

What I wanted to do was build an automobile.

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.

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

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

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.'

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

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.

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

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.

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

Every morning I wake up with new ideas.

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

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

Porsche and BMW drivers are arrogant.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races

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

I've worked with the SVT guys for several years now, and I know they have the guts, the talent and the passion to deliver the best performance Mustangs ever,

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.

I am very pleased that the way the Cobra turned out and how well it was received by everyone, especially enthusiasts and the media.