From the moment the Shelby 260 was first tested in February 1962, the car fulfilled a promise which made it nearly mythical. Light, extremely powerful, well balanced, and extraordinarily beautiful, the car proved that an excellent engine and an equal chassis could be designed on different continents for different purposes, and yet combine to make a world-beater. With a keen eye for machinery and an innate sense for what worked in a car, Carroll Shelby had the vision to mate a light and efficient British chassis with a thumping American shortblock V8.
Shelby joined with Peter Brock, Dean Moon, and others to mate the AC chassis with the Ford 260 V8 and Borg-Warner 4-speed transmission. The prototype chassis, CSX-2000, with gleaming unpainted coachwork was lovingly hand-built in England by AC Cars, which had lost its supply of Bristol engines.
Air-freighted to Dean Moon's shop in Southern California in February 1962, so perfect was the mating that the powerplant was in the car and on the road in a mere eight hours. Lacking a badge, an improvised 'Shelby' logo was painted on the nose before it took to the road. Exoto's reproduction of this fantastic car is as lovingly built and perfectly designed as the original, offering every bit the same thrill as the original did when its polished aluminum body slid into the California sunlight forty years ago.
