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1959 Chevy Corvette Scaglietti: The Shelby Cobra That Wasn’t

There is a little-known story about Carroll Shelby, the Chevy Corvette, and racing history that would have profoundly changed the car world as we know it, had Chevrolet been receptive to Shelby’s pitch.

It was no secret Shelby hated Enzo Ferrari. Shelby had driven for the Ferrari team, and had seen and experienced how poorly Enzo treated his drivers. Ferrari’s first concern was winning and he would encourage competition between his drivers, even “threatening” to fire the loser. At the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans, several drivers lost their lives. One of them was Ferrari team driver and Shelby’s dear friend, Luigi Musso. Shelby held Ferrari personally responsible, making it his mission in life to beat Ferrari anywhere he could.

The 1959 Chevy Corvette Scaglietti, or Corvette Italia, residing at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The 1959 Chevy Corvette Scaglietti, or Corvette Italia, residing at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Shelby wanted to take on Ferrari with a limited-production American car. The only American sports car at that time was the Chevy Corvette. Shelby had raced Corvettes in the past and was impressed with the performance. He thought he could use the Corvette frame, suspension, and drivetrain, coupled with a lightweight Italian-styled aluminum body to hunt Enzo Ferrari on his own turf.

Shelby, along with fellow racers Jim Hall and Gary Laughlin, purchased three 1959 Chevy Corvettes and sent them to Italy. They commissioned Italian design house Scaglietti to build streamlined coupe bodies for the Corvettes.

After the three Chevy Corvette Italias (as they were known at that time) were completed, Shelby, Hall, and Laughlin presented the cars to former VP of GM Harley Earl, and head the of GM’s Car and Truck division Ed Cole. Earl and Cole loved the idea, GM brass did not. They did not want a low-production, high-performance, specialty version of the Chevy Corvette poaching from the rest of the Corvette production. Moreover, Chevrolet was part of an informal agreement between the Big Three American auto manufacturers against supporting sports car racing borne out of the 1955 Le Mans disaster that killed driver Pierre LeVegh, eighty-three spectators, and injured 120 more.

GM brass wasn’t the only hurdle for the modified Chevy Corvettes. Scaglietti’s biggest customer was Ferrari, and Enzo was livid when he found out Scaglietti had re-bodied three Corvettes.

So, Shelby didn’t have any Chevy Corvette frames, drivetrains, or suspensions. He didn’t have his slippery Italian coachwork or interiors. What Shelby did have was a desire to beat and embarrass Enzo Ferrari. Shelby heard that English automaker AC Ltd had lost its engine supplier Bristol Aeroplane. Carroll wrote AC, and convinced them to send him a roller, which is a chassis and body without drivetrain. He explained to AC that he had engines from Ford and wanted to use the AC platform as the basis for a new sports car. Shelby contacted Lee Iacocca at Ford, asking for a couple of their new, small-displacement V8s. He explained that he had some rolling chassis from AC and wanted to use the Ford drivetrain as the basis for a new sports car. Some have described this as, “If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs… if we had some eggs.”

Any car fanatic worth their salt knows what happened next. Shelby developed the Shelby Cobra. Development began in 1962 with a crude chassis backed by a small-displacement Ford V8. Then came suspension and chassis improvements, bigger engines, better transmissions, stiffened frames, and so on. Aerodynamic limitations kept the open Cobra roadster from being competitive at tracks with high top speeds, especially Le Mans with its lengthy Mulsanne Straight. Pete Brock, who had formerly worked on the Chevy Corvette Sting Ray, used a wrecked Cobra roadster as the basis for the Shelby Daytona Coupe. On long straightaways, where the roadster used to give up 30 mph in top speed to the Ferrari 250 GTO, the Daytona Coupes bested the GTO by nearly 10 mph.

In 1963, Ford learned Enzo Ferrari was interested in selling his company to Ford. During negotiations, Ferrari became upset with not being allowed to keep full control of the company’s racing efforts. At the last minute, Enzo backed out of the deal. Ford had spent millions auditing Ferrari’s business. Henry Ford II was furious and vowed to beat Ferrari on the racetrack, especially at Le Mans, where Ferrari had previously reigned supreme. Thus, the Ford GT40 program was born.

Eventually, the GT40 program was turned over to Shelby and Company. Shelby’s team improved upon the design, making the car more robust and competitive. They put the best drivers behind the wheel. The program continued to evolve and improve, and by the 1966 racing season, the GT40 was ready to take on the world. The GT40s finished 1-2-3 at the first 24 Hours of Daytona and had the same result came at the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring. The team had a 1-2-3 finish at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. The GT40s continued winning, racking up Le Mans wins in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. Enzo Ferrari was publicly humiliated at what was widely thought to be his racing venue. Ferrari left Le Mans endurance racing and did not return until 2023.

Carroll Shelby had formed a strong relationship with Ford. In the mid-1960s, Shelby Mustang GT350s transformed what was commonly thought of as a “secretary’s car” into a fire-breathing performance coupe. The Shelby became synonymous with performance. So tight was the bond between Shelby and Iococca, that when Lee left Ford for Chrysler, he convinced Shelby to bring his performance name and magic to the Pentastar.

Shelby would go on to lend his performance expertise to Chrysler in the 1980s, creating the Chrysler Shelby Performance Center in Whittier, CA, and developing the Dodge Shelby Charger, Dodge Shelby Daytona, the Dodge Shelby Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell) and GLHS (Goes Like Hell Some more), Dodge Shelby Daytona Z, Dodge Shelby Rampage, Dodge Shelby Lancer, and even the Dodge Shelby Dakota. Toward the end of the decade, Chrysler’s Executive Vice President Bob Lutz would ask Shelby to develop a high-performance concept car loosely based on the Shelby Cobra. The V10 drivetrain was developed with help from Lamborghini, which was then owned by Chrysler. The car came to market in 1992, after a prototype was driven at the 1991 Indy 500 by Mr. Shelby. Production of the Viper, with its 400-horsepower V10, helped kick off the horsepower wars with Chevrolet.

The Chevy Corvette ZR-1 was introduced as a 1990 production model, featuring a DOHC 32-valve, aluminum block and head 5.7-liter V-8. At the time of the Viper’s introduction, the ZR-1 was rated at 375 horsepower. Chevrolet had loudly proclaimed the super Vette “King of the Hill” (stealing the name from the Shelby GT500KR, which Ol’ Shel had stolen from the Mid-Year Chevy Corvette, but that’s another story). For the 1993 model year, a year after the Viper bowed, the Corvette was tweaked to produce 405 horsepower, and the game was afoot.

All of this history was necessary to ask the questions, What if the Chevy brass had said yes to the Chevy Corvette Scaglietti? What if limited-production, high-performance Corvettes had begun to roll off the assembly line in the early 1960s? Could Ferrari have stood up to the industrial might of GM? Doubtful. If GM had said yes, there would have been no Shelby Cobra, no Cobra Daytona Coupes, and no Shelby Mustangs. There may have been Shelby Camaros, Chevelles, Novas, and the like. The horsepower wars of the 1960s may not have played out the same way. If Shelby had not gone to Ford, he probably wouldn’t have had the relationship with Iacocca, and there would have been none of the CSPC Chryslers of the 1980s and 1990s. Without the Chrysler relationship, there would have been no Dodge Viper. Chevy Corvette performance may have been driven by Shelby and Zora Arkus-Duntov, who were good friends. Would a mid-engine Chevy Corvette have come decades earlier with both Duntov and Shelby pushing for it? A simple change of heart at GM in 1959 could have had titanic implications for automotive history as we know it.

As for the three Corvette Scagliettis, one ended up in a private collection, one was purchased for $150,000 at the Barrett-Jackson auction in 2000 and resides in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and the third is owned by hotelier Bill Marriott. They rarely trade hands, and assigning a value would be difficult as there are so few comparable examples.

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Comments

  1. Cool story and great article.

    Reply
  2. Very interesting and informative article with great details!!
    Thanks for writing it!!

    Reply
    1. Did not know about this Corvette variant. Not surprisingly GM management and Enzo Ferrari killed the project. Great refresher and back story.

      Reply
  3. I own a red 59 Corvette. I love the body style, especially the curvy rear end and the teeth in the grille. But this is more fantastic, a completely different look. WOW I wish I had this one parled next to mine.

    Reply
  4. Not surprising to see that Earl and Cole were excited about the idea, two actual car guys.

    Reply
  5. I wish I could there was a carbon fiber option to fit a1959 frame….

    Reply
  6. Thanks for the great story and all of the time researching the article!!
    I saw the Scaglietti at the Peterson, one of the top car museums in the country.
    One more item about Shelby would be his limited run sports car with the Olds V8 built in Vegas late in his career.

    Reply

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