Bold Moves: Episode 3 - The Legend of Carroll Shelby
The third installment of Ford's ambitious Bold Moves documentary series kicks off a three-part arc focused on the new GT500 . Fittingly, Part 1 centers on the man for which that car is named: Carroll Shelby. Chock full of great archival footage, the webisode begins with Carroll telling viewers in his own words how his relationship with Ford came to be. He approached then-president Lee Iacocca with the proposition that if Iacocca gave him $25,000, he'd build Ford a car that would go out and beat the Corvette. In one of the better moves ever made by an automobile industry executive, Iacocca ponied up the $25K. The rest, as you know, is history.
The episode goes on to show Ford's emergence in the musclecar arena, then takes viewers through the decline of performance in the fuel-strapped 70s to the design and product wasteland of the 80s, finally bringing the story full circle with Carroll's return to Ford a few years ago. Carroll Shelby's one of those people who you can watch and listen to for hours on end. You only get a couple of minutes with him in Bold Moves episode 3, but it's time very well spent.
Autoblog's fearless leader, John Neff, gets into the act himself as the scribe of the "Point" essay in the Point/Counterpoint feature on the site. In it, he makes a compelling case as to why halo cars like the new Shelby GT500 are important to automakers.
Your assignments, Autoblog readers, are the following: Watch the webisode. Read the essay. Weigh in with your own opinions in the comments.
Now get going!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Elliott 8:49AM (7/18/2006)
Personally, I love halo cars and I hope to own one someday. That being said, what would you say is the halo car of Toyota and Honda? These two companies seem to be doing great.
All the buzz at the autoshow in Detroit was about the GT500 and the Challenger and Camaro concepts (read: prototypes). Yet, it was Honda who was winning awards and Toyota that was selling cars.
Again, I love halo vehicles, but asking an enthusiast to defend them is like asking a fat guy to defend the super-sized double quarter-pounder value meal.
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Sam 10:22AM (7/18/2006)
Episode 4 is out as well.
Additionally, if you play one of the episodes, click "scale", then change the new URL's "episode" number, you can watch episode 5 in advance. Unfortunately, the trick doesn't seem to work for episodes 6 and beyond yet.
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Koba 2:59PM (7/18/2006)
Judging by the looks of it, this is just another campaign from Ford to try to gather public interest. The mention of that car and using Carroll Shelby to promote it is absurd. Sales of the mustang are going no where but down. Many are sold today for use as commuter cars, and that's the problem. The halos will always do well, but Ford needs to realize that they have to offer strong mainstream competitors. The future is in high mpg vehicles, small cars and small trucks, diesel and hybrid powertrains. Yeah, the mustang is great, but years away from a redesign (that's headed nowhere anyway, I mean where do you go from retro?), staring at a gas crisis, and preparing to watch GM and DCX hop in the segment, it's obvious the car's best days are either directly behind it, or directly ahead of it.
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Alex Nunez 3:47PM (7/18/2006)
Cool tips, Sam. Thanks.
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Randy 8:35PM (7/19/2006)
Interesting that Koba states the new Mustang is a flatliner, when sales have continued to remain solid.
Ford is seriously addressing the public's concern with them (via actual public responses/internet posts/tv/etc.), and I feel this was a great way of bringing Ford to the American public. This has been a source of conversation with our customers and been an ice breaker. Our customers feel that Ford is opening up in a good way, and putting an emphasis on the fact that we are still the company that brought automobiles where they are today and will continue to pave the road in the future.
Simply put, this is a great series on two great American icons, and way to go Ford.
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