Handful of new Shelby Series II roadsters still available for purchase

Back in the mid 1990s, Carroll Shelby set out to do something he had never done: build a complete car from scratch. The Series 1 seemed to have the right formula on paper – lightweight aluminum honeycomb chassis, carbon fiber body, sophisticated coilover suspension and a 4.0-liter V8 created for the Indy Racing League. However, just like so many others before (and after), ol' Carroll found that building a production car was a much more difficult task than simply stuffing hi-po engines into Mustangs and Cobras. The Series 1 suffered from unexpectedly high production costs that nearly doubling its $100,000 price tag, and the IRL engine was dropped in favor of an Aurora-based V8 producing just 320 horsepower. Despite additional investment in the car and a supercharger option, customers who had put down deposits fled and less than 250 examples left the Shelby factory.

Then in 2006, Shelby Automobiles, Inc. announced it would be continuing production of the car, renamed the Series II and featuring a revised front and rear end and a price tag of $225,000. Despite claims that most of the production run was already sold out, the Series II never materialized due to the excessive costs needed to re-certify the car for modern Federal standards. We haven't heard about the car since then and thought the story had ended. But wait, there's more! Apparently there were still a few Series II bodies still lying around, and Superformance Distribution, the same company that sells the Foose Coupe, has a handful for sale. Each are sold as "specially constructed vehicles" sans engine and transmission, leaving the responsibility of adding the powertrain to the new owner. We've heard that only four Series II roadsters have been built, making it one of the most rare and intriguing Shelbys ever built.

[Source: Superformance Distribution]