Carroll Shelby was born on January 11, 1923, in Texas, U.S.A. Shelby faced several health complications throughout his life. He was very fascinated with cars and speed. At the age of 15, he learnt driving. He started studying to become a pilot at the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center. In 1941.
At the age of 29, Shelby started driving professionally. He took part in several car races, and by 1952, he won almost four races. Shelby set about 17 world records on his own. He was severely injured in a crash while racing a Healey. After going eight operations, he started driving again in 1955 and won ten races. He started driving Ferrari and won almost 30 races with it. He was the driver of the year in 1956 and 1957.
In 1961, Shelby and Pete Brock established the Shelby School of High-Performance Driving at Riverside track. He wrote his memoir, The Carroll Shelby Story, in 1967. He was also portrayed in Ford v. Ferrari by Matt Damon. Shelby went through a heart transplant in 1950. He died at the age of 89 on May 10, 2012, due to a fatal heart ailment.
Few very popular quotes by Carroll Shelby are as follows.
I've always been asked, 'What is my favorite car?' and I've always said 'The next one.'
One should always have a thirst for accomplishing more in life. You should never get satisfied. Rather, you should work to do better than before. You should always look for new opportunities and scopes in life.
Every morning I wake up with new ideas.
Every day is a new beginning. We should never be upset or sad about what happened yesterday. Instead, we should be proud that we have got a lesson. We should wake up with a new idea each day and work hard to make that idea become a reality.
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.
There are always people who talk behind your back; there will always be people like that. We should never get bothered by other's opinions. Haters are going to hate, and admirers are going to admire. We should do whatever we wish to, no matter what.
Driving race cars was an avenue for me to learn how to build my own car, and that was my ambition all along.
We should always remember what efforts do we need to put in to achieve our goal. When we know what we need to do, we start to prepare ourselves. We try to learn new things and become more capable, and in no time, we achieve our dreams.
It's a massive motor in a tiny, lightweight car.
Shelby says that the motor is the most powerful and efficient organ of a car. No matter how the car is, if the motor is powerful, the car will work wonderfully. It's all about what's inside the car.
Continue reading some of the best Carroll Shelby Quotes...
I never made a damn dime until I started doing what I wanted.
One can never earn money until he does what he loves the most. When you love your work, you produce efficient results. Those results are the best results one can produce because you work with your heart no just your head.
I've had a good run. I've built a lot of things that work and a lot of things that didn't work.
Life is all about learning and failing. Success and failure are two sides of the same coin. You have lived a proper life only when you have experienced both. You will do something good and fail at some of them. That is life.
Racing has reached the point where it is pricing the young driver, no matter his talent, out of the game.
The young drivers ask for too much money no matter their talent. The only criteria one sees is their young age. Especially in racing, the young drivers are often in great demand. They often ask for a huge sum of money.
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.
Teamwork makes everything possible. When we work as a team, we can do wonders. Coordination and cooperation are a must. One should know what exactly they are fighting against and then make a plan and work for it. One can never give productive results if he works alone.
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.
One should not dream about how rich they can get. They should focus on their own growth and ambitions. Those who run after money and consider that as their ambition are often unhappy. You should chase your dreams, and earning a lot of money should not be your goal. When you do something with your heart, the money will come along.
Few more Carroll Shelby Quotes....
The first time I walked by a crap table, I felt kind of funny.
Crap tables are found in casinos. They are funny because people go there to bet and earn money, but people often lose a lot of money to make a profit and never realize how stupid that idea is.
What I wanted to do was build an automobile.
One should always know what they want to do in life. Here, Shelby tells how much he wished to build an automobile, and he eventually did so. When you know what you want to do in life, you have a fixed destination, and you work hard to reach there.
I had a lot of fun driving race cars, but it wasn't my No. 1 priority.
Shelby says how he enjoyed driving race cars, but it wasn't his first priority. His priorities were to excel in driving and build an automobile. One should never get distracted by other goals. They should have one goal and try to work on that and reach there.
I didn't have time for my children much. I wasn't a very good parent; I had a pretty unhappy home life.
Those who achieve big in life and are obsessed with their ambitions are often not successful in their private lives. They are not able to adjust and make time for their family. Their dream consumes their entire life.
Porsche and BMW drivers are arrogant.
Porsche and BMW are some of the costliest cars in the world. Those who drive them are often more arrogant. They think it is a privilege to drive such cars. They forget that they are made by humans only, and they are nothing but just mere vehicles. There is no added privileges or advantages of driving such cars.
