For Shelby, 50 years of blowing other cars' doors off

A 2012 Shelby Cobra sits on the company's assembly floor. The muscle car maker celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET) LAS VEGAS, Nev.--It may be the most valuable American car ever made. Sitting inside what looks from the outside mostly like a non-descript suburban warehouse, the vehicle fills a lot of people with lust.
Still a striking and shiny blue, the 1962 Shelby Cobra 427 is the very first of its kind. And it is such an important entry in the pantheon of American muscle cars that someone recently offered $25 million for it.

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Welcome to Shelby American, a company whose rare cars are built to blow by just about any competition, yet are designed to be everyday drivable if that's what an owner wants.
As part of Road Trip 2012, I've stopped in on the company the late Carroll Shelby founded in 1962 -- making this the 50th anniversary of the Cobra and the manufacturer that bears his name.
These days, Shelby is probably best known for the high-end modifications is does to make Ford Mustangs be truly all they can be. For example, the Shelby 1000, which is made entirely by hand in very limited numbers, starts with a 2012 Shelby GT 500 Super Snake -- already a more powerful car than most -- and takes it over the top. The result costs a minimum of $150,000 (not including the base vehicle) and generates more than 1,000 horsepower and a top speed in excess of 200 miles an hour.

A Shelby GTS V8, which produces 624 horsepower, is being worked on at the company's assembly facility in Las Vegas, Nev.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Each year, Shelby turns out only a couple hundred cars and spends between 60 and 90 days working on each. And while the vehicles may be the secret desire of men everywhere, vice president of operations Gary Patterson told me that those men's wives also enjoy them since each model comes with many of the creature comforts common to high-end cars, such as cruise control, GPS navigation, MP3 support, and so on.