Was One Of Carroll Shelby's Most Famous Statements A Lie?

Was Carroll Shelby telling a white lie in one of his most famous statements? He once said that his Cobra 427 accelerated so fast that if he were to put a $100 bill on the car’s dashboard and a passenger could reach out and take it during a launch to 60mph, they could keep it.

Autocar, in a spare 10 minutes with a selection of cars at their disposal, decided to see how much truth there was in the idea. It’s all tongue-in-cheek, but the answer is not as much truth as the ghost of Carroll Shelby would like you to believe. To make it happen you need a very fast car, the passenger seat needs to be all the way back, and the note needs to be all the way forwards. It doesn’t look good for the famous old myth, but there are potentially a lot of explanations as to why the great man might have gotten away with it…