If you follow professional sports, you know that players that made a name for themselves with a certain team sometimes briefly play for a different organization. For instance, Hakeem Olajuwon spent almost his entire 18-season career (and won two NBA championships) with the Houston Rockets, but he played his final 61 games with the Toronto Raptors. Think of the 1999 Shelby Series 1 as the automotive equivalent of that for Carroll Shelby. After decades of souping up Ford and Dodge vehicles, he used a General Motors engine in a short run of DOHC V8-powered sports cars (although he later returned to collaborating with Ford). We consider the one you see here, a 1999 Shelby Series 1 posted on ClassicCars.com by a Missouri dealership, our Pick of the Day.
If you’re not familiar with this part of Shelby history, that’s OK. It’s not as if you’ve had a lot of chances to see one of these on the road. Shelby only ended up producing 249 of these, all of them 1999 models. This silver one with red stripes and a black soft top is #4 from that short run.
It’s a shame Series 1s are such rare sights because they have attractive curves rendered in carbon fiber, all laid over an aluminum chassis. There’s a certain boldness and aggression to the power-dome hood, massive fender vents, 18-inch wheels, and dual exhaust outlets that jut out from the rear at an angle, as if they’re artillery ready to fire at trailing vehicles. What’s harder to see is the double-wishbone suspension with inboard-mounted coilovers.
Not only is the Series 1 a limited-production car, but it also has a relatively unusual engine for a car like this. True, the 320-horsepower 4.0-liter V8 from the Oldsmobile Aurora is not a flat-plane-crank Ferrari engine, but it’s a GM power plant with double overhead cams mated with a six-speed manual gearbox. By making the Series 1 with this engine, Shelby completed a trifecta with the “Big Three” Michigan brands.
Aside from familiar GM parts, the cockpit has black and gray leather seats with embroidered Carroll Shelby autographs, a Monsoon AM/FM/CD/cassette audio system, and air conditioning. Perhaps its most important feature is the number on the odometer: 739.
To add to that ultra-low mileage figure, you need to add this 1999 Shelby Series 1 to your garage. To do that, it’ll take $184,995.
Click here to view this Pick of the Day on ClassicCars.com