5 Of The Greatest Non-Ford Cars That Shelby Built

If you were to ask a car person between the mid-1960s to the present day, "What do you associate with the Shelby name?" you'll generally get one of three answers. The first deals with the man who won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans, car constructor and former racing driver Carroll Shelby. The second is his most infamous creation, the Shelby Cobra. And the third references his company's long-standing partnerships with Ford, crafting some of the finest Mustangs of all time. But it's not a name one associates with, let's say, pickup trucks, economy hatchbacks, or even Oldsmobiles. In reality, Shelby American dabbled in all three, among many other more ventures seemingly out of left-field.

It's true that, aside from the Mustang, most of Shelby's classic racers used Ford parts, such as the AC Cobra, Shelby Daytona, Ford GT40, and De Tomaso Sport 5000. However, Carroll Shelby didn't produce just Ford products because of an obligation; rather, he ran his company independently. So when his good friend Lee Iacocca saved Chrysler from bankruptcy in the early '80s, he convinced Shelby to come out of retirement and help him build some mighty fast cars. Shelby agreed, and a deal was struck in 1982, marking Shelby American's first official foray outside of Ford. This partnership lasted until 1989 and resulted in the creation of several Chrysler-based models before Shelby again retired following heart complications. However, he once more picked up the mantle in the 1990s, this time building the first bespoke clean-sheet Shelby vehicle. This whole era from the 1980s-2000s was littered with non-Ford Shelby products of many shapes and sizes; let's take a look at a few of the highlights.

By the turn of the millennium, Shelby practically became a household-name in the enthusiast community, with the company's products well-loved for their high-performance and wild looks. But Shelby never actually produced its own clean-sheet car before. Rather, the company only ever modified existing platforms. That all changed with the debut of the Series 1, created by Carroll Shelby as a personal challenge to see "if I can build a 2350-pound car that has air conditioning, power windows, the whole thing." And the car's body had indeed become the only ever bespoke Shelby design, before or since. However, it also featured a huge assortment of GM-sourced components to fill out the interior, running gear, and engine -– more specifically, a modified 320-horsepower variant of the 4.0L Northstar V8 from an Oldsmobile Aurora, of all things.

That raises one important question: why? This relates to Oldsmobile's decline, suffering heavily throughout the 1990s. Putting Oldsmobile engines into high-performance vehicles and racers was essentially a publicity stunt to market to a younger, more motorsport-oriented crowd while maintaining some level of plausible deniability. The Aurora itself is another example of this; it used a unique logo and marketed itself in commercials and brochures as "Aurora By Oldsmobile," but otherwise omitting the company name.

While originally slated for 500 cars, the Series 1 was a commercial failure with only 249 units produced. The price certainly didn't help; a Series 1 in 1999 commanded anywhere from around $100,000 to an eye-watering $181,000 depending on options. Still, the all-Shelby engineered body and surprising performance figures (reaching 60 in just over 4 seconds) rightfully earn this beast a great amount of fondness and respect.

On the one hand, this truck is basically the "GMC Syclone we have at home," housing a 5.2L "Magnum" V8 producing a rather underwhelming 175 horsepower. So it's a little shy of GM's 280-horsepower turbo V6-powered monstrosity, which debuted just two years later. But the Dakota still produced some 270 lb. ft. torque from just 2,000 RPM, exceptional figures for a 1980s compact pickup truck. This meant that, while not particularly fast in terms of top-end speed, the lightweight Shelby Dakota leapt off the line like it just stepped on a hornet nest. And it was certainly way faster than anything GM or Ford had on offer prior to the 1990s. All trucks came with a 4-speed automatic with bespoke wheels, rollbar, and side graphics. Sadly, Shelby never officially marketed a 1989 convertible, which debuted the same year as an in-house attempt to make the Dakota more "fun."

Some 1,475 Shelby Dakotas left the factory, available in white or red, for only the 1989 model year. Predating big names like the Syclone and F-150 Lightning, this effectively made the Shelby Dakota among the first regular production high-performance street trucks available at a dealership. It was by no means the original muscle truck; the Dodge Lil' Red Express predates it by some 11 years, for example. But the Shelby Dakota represents two significant milestones for Shelby American. Firstly, this was the company's first performance truck. Secondly, Shelby hadn't produced a V8, RWD vehicle at all since the 1960s, adding to the Dakota's exclusivity. Though it certainly wasn't the only truck Shelby produced, and far from the wildest, with another example arriving just one decade later.

Jumping straight from mild to wild, this SUV, at first glance, looks more like a home built project to convert a Durango into a Viper GTS. But this was, in fact, an actual production truck, albeit a very rare one with just 300 units produced in 1999 and 2000, though Dodge wanted to build 3,000. It certainly wasn't the most powerful Durango ever made. But it was still a very potent powerplant, certainly for a Durango –- boasting a supercharged 5.9L V8 with 360 horsepower (hence the "SP-360" suffix) and 412 lb. ft. torque. Consider that the GMC Syclone/Typhoon trucks, once heralded as the fastest performance trucks of their day, only managed 280 horsepower (and compared favorably against Ferraris with that). This truck directly competed with Ford's 1999 F-150 SVT Lightning, which also had 360 horsepower but slightly more torque. But while the Lightning was quicker, the Durango was more suburban-friendly thanks to its comfort and passenger capacity advantage.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to help the truck out of obscurity, not helped by its low sales figures. This low demand ultimately doomed the truck to fade into the background alongside similar high-performance SUVs of the day, such as the Saleen XP8. Still, the Shelby Durango possessed a certain staying power, whether that be for its poster-quality looks or unique supercharged engine. Even a few video games featured the model as a playable car. It might not be the most powerful of all the Shelby models, nor is it the most glamorous. But its striking characteristics remain just as quirky, functional, and head-turning today as they did 25 years ago, easily making the Shelby Durango one of the coolest SUVs produced in this era.

Possibly the closest anyone's ever gotten to resurrecting the Cobra in the modern era, the original Viper seemed tailor-made by Carroll Shelby — and, in fact, he acted as a consultant on the original Viper design team. The first-generation Dodge Viper RT/10 was already well-loved (and loathed) for its utterly savage performance, requiring a tremendous level of respect to drive quickly. So there wasn't exactly much that Shelby had to do to make this platform even more monstrous to begin with. Hence, the RT/10 CS was more of a limited-edition aesthetics package with mild performance enhancements, rather than a full-on overhaul, and never marketed by Chrysler directly. Rather, all sales went through Fitzgerald Motorsports

Much like prior entries, this vehicle also failed to meet its original sales goal, with just 19 Shelby Vipers produced out of a planned 50. Most were white with blue stripes, and displayed Carroll Shelby's signature on the glove box. It offered no direct performance enhancement, which was arguably a good thing, considering a standard Viper rocketed to 60 in just 4.5 seconds with "only" 400 horsepower. Arguably, this makes the Shelby Viper among some of the highest-performance vehicles Shelby produced up to this point, but it barely deviated from a regular Viper. The RT/10CS added a free-flow exhaust, 3.73 final drive ratio, and heavy-duty suspension, among other minor enhancements. The RT/10 CS didn't reinvent the wheel, nor change the Viper's character in any meaningful way. But even a standard Viper is so quintessentially Shelby that it didn't really need to.

The reason why, of all things, a 4-cylinder hatchback tops a list of outstanding Shelby cars comes down to a matter of design philosophy. What do you do when you're a performance specialist, but it's the tail-end of the Malaise Era? Instead of going with more power, you go with less weight. Hence, the creation of the compact Shelby GLH (standing for "Goes Like Hell") series, cars built during an age when automakers began to realize that less weight meant more enthusiasts grinning. Utilizing upgraded 1982 Shelby Charger underpinnings, Shelby produced two such vehicles, the Charger and Omni GLH, from 1984-1986. These vehicles were distinctive, fast, and -– unlike many of Shelby's other non-Ford ventures –- actually quite successful. Before long, Shelby substantially upgraded both chassis with revised powertrain, running gear, and bodywork, christening these machines as the Charger and Omni GLH-S (with a hyphen), or "Goes Like Hell -– Some More."

The Omni GLH-S in particular proved to be the star of the show here because this era was absolute prime Hot Hatch territory. With emissions restrictions favoring small, light, four-cylinder cars, platforms like the Toyota Tercel and Honda Civic dominated the compact economy market. Meanwhile, in comes this intercooled turbocharged, 175-horsepower, 4-door hatchback sat on Koni suspension with a base price of $10,800. This car didn't just beat a similarly priced 1986 Golf GTI, it blew its doors off with almost 70 more horsepower and reaching 60 in just 6.5 seconds –- nearly four seconds faster than the Volkswagen. To put that into perspective, this front-wheel drive hot hatch reached 60 just a half-second shy of a 1986 Corvette. Its rather pedestrian body and characteristic mid-80s aesthetic essentially made this car the ultimate Shelby sleeper, and easily solidified it as one of the best hot hatches America ever produced.