Forgotten Cars: Shelby Series 1

"LJ909" (lj909) 01/08/2018 at 13:56 • Filed to: None

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Image: Road&Track

It was supposed to be the car that showed that Shelby still had it going into the 21st century. But some called it “too ambitious”. And in a way it was. Surprisingly made for over 7 years (from 1998 to 2005) the Series 1 was, in essence, an almost new age Cobra. Almost. Well, not quite, but that’s what they would like you to believe. Designed by Shelby himself and produced by his company, it was supposedly the only car designed and engineered from scratch by Shelby himself.

Rather than go to Ford for parts, Shelby went to GM which resulted in the car being rather odd in my opinion engine wise. It was powered by Oldsmobile’s 4.0 L47 V8, which itself, was a variant of the Northstar engine but this variant only saw duty in the Auroa. Power output was 320 horses and 290 ft/lbs of torque routed through the rear wheels by a 6 speed manual. It was light as well owing that to its carbon fiber body and honeycomb aluminum chassis weighing only 2,650 lbs. Because of this, it could reach 60 in 4.4 seconds and do a ¼ mile in 12.8. A supercharger option could take that 0-60 time down to 3.2 seconds which was insane in the late 90’s.

Car mags at the time fawned over it. But when the time came for the car to be given to the public, some things made the car not as great as Shelby had hoped it to be.

The car ended up being 700 lbs overweight, the price ballooned to nearly 200 grand, customer deposits were late, and a Car and Driver review made the car look to be more small time kit car than what one would expect from a legend like Shelby. Under !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! testing the car nuked 2 clutches, threw out an engine pulley, got a nail in the tires (which were custom designed specifically for the Series 1) and destroyed a piston. On top of all this, Shelby was having legal troubles at the time, which eventually lead to his company going bankrupt.

Really?

The icing on all of that shit cake was the fact that Shelby raided the GM parts bin for the Series 1. So much so that the car used the entire dash from the Pontiac Firebird. The Firebird in all its late 90's plastic glory. I’ll never understand why he did that. It was a good effort by Shelby and plans were for a Series 2, but they never came to pass. It was a pure sports car in the best and worst way.

Takuro Spirit > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 14:11

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Even the 1:24 scale model kit I had of one of these was a pile of junk. Hood never fit or opened right, interior was janky, decal for the engine cover didn’t look nice....

LJ909 > Takuro Spirit 01/08/2018 at 14:15

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Thats weird you mentioned that because I thought the same thing of mine when I was a kid. mine was silver with blue stripes.

crowmolly > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 14:16

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Rather than go to Ford for parts, Shelby went to GM which resulted in the car being rather odd in my opinion engine was.

Did Ford have a comparable engine? The Aurora V8 was all aluminum and had a racing pedigree.

Party-vi > crowmolly 01/08/2018 at 14:19

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Ford had all those sweet SVT engines, like the 4.6L in the Cobra and the 5.4L in the Cobra R.

Nerd-Vol > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 14:23

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I remember the car, I didn’t know it was that much of a shit show.

BigBlock440 > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 14:27

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$200k? Holy shit, no wonder they didn’t sell.

Takuro Spirit > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 14:28

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I think there were both red and blue options on the decal sheet IIRC

Came molded in white. Never painted mine because of the stupid hood.

crowmolly > Party-vi 01/08/2018 at 14:37

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I guess it’s kind of all around odd. Depends when they started designing, maybe.

The 4.6L wasn’t that great in 1998 and the Cobra R engine wasn’t around until 2000. But they didn’t choose an LS1 either, they went for the L47...

Party-vi > crowmolly 01/08/2018 at 14:39

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Because it’s DOHC and sophisticated. Also the 4.6L in the Cobra was pushing 315hp or so before the R came out, which is pretty good.

LJ909 > crowmolly 01/08/2018 at 14:54

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I think Shelby just wanted to go a different route.

LJ909 > Nerd-Vol 01/08/2018 at 14:56

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It was galling and kinda showed that without an auto companies support they could produce shit.

404 - User No Longer Available > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 16:11

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It looks surprised.

RT > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 16:42

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I can’t think of a modern muscle car with a nice interior, but this is something else.

LJ909 > RT 01/08/2018 at 17:03

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My cousin had an STS as (one of) his far cars. The identical one in the pic but his was navy blue. It was nice. But boy was the Northstar pricey to repair. When shit went wrong, and it did often, that thing had German like repair bills. I remember the power steering went out for no reason at all.

RT > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 17:09

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I guess German-like repair bills are the same as repair bills for any car with complex mechanicals or electronics that’s not Japanese.

Considering the STS car was raided from the GM parts bin, it must’ve been extra specially terrifying though - especially without power steering!

LJ909 > RT 01/08/2018 at 17:13

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It was like trying to steer a ship. His dumbass still daily drove it though. I told him he was an idiot that was asking for it. I always wondered what happened to that car. Last time I had seen it (almost 15 years ago now) the speedo had stopped working and the rear suspension was sagging.

RT > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 17:27

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But the Northstar somehow didn’t eat its head gaskets in all of this?

LJ909 > RT 01/08/2018 at 17:28

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I’m pretty sure it did. I cant remember. Him and his side of the family have always been hard on cars and they are the type that wont fix things until they become serious. Often times things break on their cars that you sit and wonder “how could that possibly get broken?”

ranwhenparked > LJ909 01/08/2018 at 21:23

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I vaguely remember this car - wasn’t their factory in Las Vegas, of all places? Didn’t know it was that much of a GM parts bin special or that it had that sort of Alfa Romeo caliber reliability issues.

LJ909 > ranwhenparked 01/08/2018 at 23:18

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Yes I believe the company is still based out of Vegas. But yes this car was craptastic in a sense.

pip bip - choose Corrour > LJ909 01/09/2018 at 04:38

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how many built?

LJ909 > pip bip - choose Corrour 01/11/2018 at 11:32

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Just 249 over 7 years.