Carroll Shelby - Non-Ford Projects

Non-Ford Projects

In his later years, Shelby brought several lawsuits against companies making copies of the Cobra body for use on kit cars — ostensibly for copyright, trademark and patent violations. Despite the litigation, the Cobra kit car industry continues to thrive.

One of the lawsuits involved the Superformance Brock Coupe, a copy of the original Shelby Daytona Coupe. The Superformance Brock Coupe was designed by Pete Brock, who had also designed the original Daytona Coupe for Shelby. Shelby American sued Superformance after Superformance had developed and begun production of the Superformance Brock Coupe. Eventually, the litigation was settled, though the terms of the settlement (if any) have never been released to the public. As a result of the agreement between the two companies, the product is now known as the Shelby Daytona Coupe, despite being neither designed nor built by Shelby American. Nearly 150 of these new Shelby Daytona Coupes have been built as of February 2007.

In 2002, Unique Performance, a company of Farmers Branch, Texas, purchased a license from Carroll Shelby Enterprises to place his name on a series of continuation vintage vehicles. This company specialized in recreating 1960s style Shelby Mustangs. They purchased used Mustangs and installed updated versions of the Shelby 325 horsepower 302 cubic inch V8 engine. They also utilize modern five-speed manual transmissions, brakes, steering, suspension, interiors and entertainment systems. Because Mr. Shelby's license was purchased, these cars have Shelby serial numbers.

In October 2007, Carroll Shelby pulled his licensing agreement with Unique Performance due to numerous issues of customer complaints where vehicles were not delivered. Unique Performance was subsequently raided by law enforcement due to VIN irregularities and declared bankruptcy, which effectively ended the Shelby continuation "Eleanor" Mustang production. Shelby was in turn sued by victims of Unique Performance for his involvement in the criminal activity, and lost a subsequent case in 2008 brought by Denice Halicki the widow of H.B. Halicki who owned the copyright image of the "Eleanor" and the trademark name, which brought to an end production of the "continuation models". The only official licensed "Eleanor" maker was Classic Recreations in Oklahoma, U.S.A., until Mr. Shelby brought them into a licensing agreement as of October 2009 to build an official continuation vehicle titled the GT500CR. A car named Shelby Cobra 429 S/T was now in the Hot Wheels Muscle Mania collection in 2010.