2008 Shelby GT500 Super Snake - CSM #334

A legend worthy of the moniker, and perhaps the only household name of the 20th century that had to scrub his hands clean at the end of a working day, Carroll Shelby once described himself as 'just a guy from East Texas who likes cars' but was the embodiment of the American dream, and quite literally an oil-rags to riches story. Long before his association with Ford, the story of a bankrupt poultry farmer's journey to the Le Mans winner's podium within a decade is worthy of a film in of itself. The critically acclaimed 2019 box office hit Ford vs Ferrari, also known as Le Mans ‘66, tells the Oscar-winning story of Carroll Shelby’s development of the epic GT40 race car.

However, Shelby had long been synonymous with high performance variants of the Ford engine with the launch of the Shelby AC Cobra in 1962. Following his 1966 success and seeing an opportunity to capitalise on it, Ford entrusted Shelby with their Mustang model to re-engineer under Shelby American from 1965 to 1967 and Shelby Automotive from 1968 to 1970. Humble he may have been, but ever the businessman he understood the importance of branding and we can think of few people today that could get the leading motor manufacturer in the world to have a model named after them.

The Mustang-based Shelby GT350 and later GT500 quite literally muscled into the blue collar performance car market that came to define the American motor industry’s image for that period. Shelby and Ford parted company soon after but, following the introduction of the fifth-generation Ford Mustang, the Shelby name was revived in 2007 for new high performance versions but this time designed and built by Ford based on the Shelby GT500. Whilst Carroll Shelby himself admitted that the 2007 GT500 was a fast car, he always enjoyed showing Ford engineers exactly what he could 'bring to the party'.

So, in 2008, Shelby Automobiles offered the Super Snake conversion for the GT500, for those who thought 500bhp wasn’t enough and rather fancied upwards of 725bhp instead. Production was  limited to 1,000 cars mainly built at the Shelby HQ in Nevada, however cars could also be re-engineered and reborn as the Super Snake at authorised 'modification centres' around the US and each car bore a plaque confirming the centre and production number known as a 'CSM'. In 2008, this Vapour Silver GT500 was converted to Super Snake specification by the Shelby American Inc. authorised modification centre at Tasca Ford of Rhode Island and assigned the CSM number #334.

It speaks volumes that the car was shipped to these shores later that year and first registered with the DVLA on 1st October. Appropriately registered SS58 USA, it's presented to auction with just 12,029 miles, at the time of cataloguing, and the advisory-free MOT Certificate is valid until 28th August 2024.

Perhaps the ultimate American muscle car of its era, this early Super Snake has the distinction of being one of the rarest and most powerful cars available today.