Customer Reviews

The Complete Book of Shelby Automobiles: Cobras, Mustangs, and Super Snakes (Complete Book Series)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book, unlike previous efforts on the topic, tells the entire Shelby story from the early 260 Cobras to today's monster Shelby GT500s. While most books have featured a narrow band of Shelby history illustrated with vintage black and white photos, this one covers the entire spectrum with a balanced combination of old black and white photos (many not seen before) and a plethora of crisp color photos taken in more recent times. Every model, both old and new, is deliciously illustrated.

This book is complete in comprehensively documenting not only the better known Shelby efforts but all of the side trips he made as well (Sunbeam Tiger, Viper, Toyota 2000 GT, Shelby Dodges, Series 1). The author's passion and expertise permeate the book. While authoritative, the text is easy to read due to an engaging prose style. This book is a must buy for both new and established collectors of the marque as well as those with a more general interest in one of the greatest automotive success stories in America.

My first car was a 69 Shelby Mustang GT 350 convertible and I drove it everyday from 1974 until 1984 and have been a student of Shelby and his cars ever since. Presently as an owner of three vintage Shelby Mustangs and two new Shelby Supersnakes I continue to drive and enjoy Shelby's rolling works of art and have probably read every book ever written about him including the SAAC registry cover to cover. Colin Comer's Sequel to his best selling Million Dollar Muscle car book is simply in my view the first Shelby book worthy of the man and his cars. More importantly even if your not a car person Comer's writing style is witty and irreverent making it an easy and fascinating historical read for anyone curious about a certified American icon. Carroll Shelby will be remembered as one of the two or three most significant people in automotive history and this book artfully takes you along for the ride on one of the best adventures anyone ever turned into a life.

I just got my new book by Colin Comer, and, was truly amazed at the amount of new information, and especially, never before seen pictures that the author has been able to include. Lots of books have been written about Shelby cars, but, this has got them all beat by a wide margin.

I always take a book called "The Complete Book of..." with a grain of salt. I have never seen a book that really was complete. Until now, that is. This book is unbelievable. Either Mr. Comer has a crack team of researchers in his employment, or else the man possesses a freakish amount of knowledge about Shelby automobiles. Either way, the end result is the first "Complete Book of..." that really is the complete book on the subject.

But the stellar quality of this book doesn't end with it's completeness. Normally I'd expect a book like this to read like an entertaining encyclopedia, and I wouldn't be disappointed with that. What I got instead was an extremely well-written--gripping, even--narrative that was as much fun to read as it was to look at, if not more so. It certainly functions as the repository of information that I expected (more-so, actually, since, for once, it really was complete, as advertised), but it also tells a hellaciously good story. As a whole package, this book is absolutely astounding.

I can usually read automobile books in about fifteen minutes, about the same time I spent studying just one of the countless rare photographs in this incredible work. The dust jacket ought to carry a warning about sleep deprivation as I suspect many will find it impossible to put this book down as I did. Carroll Shelby is an American hero, the kind of man about which they used to make movies staring Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper; a one-time chicken farmer who reached the top of the automotive racing world with little more than what we used to call "American Ingenuity" (something I wish Detroit could have held on to...but I digress). Shelby has given us a treasure trove of performance cars unmatched in our history. And now there's a book that tells the story of these cars and the people behind them in delicious detail. As a fan of his first book "Million Dollar Muscle Cars" and his musings in SCM, Colin Comer's writing here is made all the more rich knowing he has driven at speed virtually all of Shelby's offerings from the Allard J2, the Shelby Cobras, the Sunbeam Tiger, the Shelby Fords, the Ford GT40, the Dodge Viper, and even the world champion Daytona Super Coupe. Add to that a gratuitous supply of photos, scores of which are candid, fly-on-the-wall vintage snapshots of Shelby and his men in the act of designing, testing, and building these legendary cars and you have a book befitting its subject. This raises the bar for car books. I've never owned a Shelby and likely never will, but after reading this book a few times I feel I know exactly what it would be like, and that's pretty damn good. Just like this book!

Excellent photos and history of all Shelby cars!! Highly recommend it! If you like Shelby Mustangs and Cobras, this is the book for you!

If you are a Shelby history fan this is a must have book. I was totally amazed at the extent that Carroll Shelby influenced the rise of V8 muscle for Ford production / race cars and beyond to Vipers and Omni's! "GLH"!!!!!

Comer's first literary endeavor has a bit of a stigma to overcome for at first glance, it appears to be just another of those books on Carroll Shelby's automobiles and while that is a true statement, this book is different. Comer uses an interesting mix of period promotional photographs and a contemporary selection from well-known automotive photographer Dave Newhardt (which is always pleasant to see). What makes the period stuff particularly interesting is that much of it has never been seen before and a surprising number of the images are in full color. This is especially cool given that color photography back in the day was far from the norm. Much of the period imagery comes to the book courtesy of the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC) Registry and it is especially refreshing to see these pictures presented in color (the SAAC Registries reproduce all period photography in black and white).

The book covers the entire automotive history of Carroll Shelby and that can be both a blessing and a curse: on the curse side of things, Carroll's cars have an especially strong polarizing influence on their enthusiast base and many enthusiasts of the early Ford-based cars have little interest in the later Chrysler products and many enthusiasts of Shelby's new creations have little interest in either of those. The result is that for many enthusiasts, there is "wasted" space presenting information on cars about which they have little interest. That said, however, for one looking for an authoritative, complete history of Carroll Shelby's creations, the book is a blessing as it covers many aspects of Shelby's later-day efforts in greater detail than has been done in previous publications. Overall, this is an extremely well-done book.

That's not to say that there are no errors, there are a few: several of the period photographs are mislabeled as to the dates of the events portrayed (although the events themselves are correctly identified) and a few folks are misnamed, but these goofs are really visible only to the hard-core Shelby junkie. For the most part, the captions do far more good than harm with these small errors and they are really enlightening. Especially interesting are a few photos taken of the early Shelby Mustangs under construction that give a good feel to the truly hand-built nature of the cars.

About the only other item worthy of note is that for some reason, Colin has stuck his wife with the unpleasant task of driving all the cars photographed in motion in the book although she seems to be putting on a good face about the job! Everything said, this is an extremely well-done book and one that should find its way on to the book shelves of many different types of Shelby enthusiasts.

The pictures and the detail of the history of Shelby is great to read the quality of the book is great too.

This a truly remarkable book on any number of levels. The pictures, many of which I had never seen, are terrific. The book is very well laid out and touches on virtually all things Shelby. I have a couple of cars featured in the book, Viper and GT, and have lusted after others. For any Mustang guy or gal this is a "must have".

The author, Colin Comer, is a contributor to my favorite car mag--"Sports Car Market". It was in SCM that I found out about the book. Over the years, Comer has proven himself as one of the foremost Shelby experts.

I started flipping through the book late one night when I was half asleep--2 hours later I was still reading.

I have lots of coffee table car books, some of which I purge during Sping cleaning---this one is a keeper.