Shelby GR-1 Concept To Go Into Production
Read about it below or hear it in our podcast!
It’s been 15 years since we first heard about this concept car. It was a modernisation of the Shelby Cobra Daytona racing car, and was even rumoured to be replacing the Ford GT at some point, but alas, such a thing never happened. It was instead forgotten about. Until now.
Unfortunately for them, it’s not Ford that’s going to be bringing this vehicle to the road. It will be a classic car replica maker from California named Superformance under the control of CEO Lance Stander. Lance had been on Ford’s back for years about this car and finally they’ve given in – after a bit of a fight.
“It’s been a project I’ve been working on with Ford for about six years. We originally said we want to do the GR-1, and we spoke to everyone at Ford and they said, ‘it’s never going to happen. Just forget about it.’
“We could have done a replica, we could have done a kit car, but that was never good enough for us. We had to get licensed by the original manufacturer, and it had to have all credibility. So I just kept plodding along and eventually the stars aligned, the right people at Ford got to hear about it and… a couple of guys at who really wanted to see it happen at Ford Design in Europe, and the next thing I know is Ford Licensing is contacting me.”
Like the original, the first remakes are going to have aluminium bodies (either painted or polished like the original). After that, it will be made out of carbon fibre and, if the late Carroll Shelby has his way, there should be some electric motors finding their way onto the chassis. There’s no information regarding a combustion engine and whether it could be the original concept’s V10, but there are several engines that would fit the specification. Maybe the 6.8-litre Triton V10 from the F250 could fit the bill?
