When most people hear the name, Carroll Shelby, they think AC Cobra or Shelby Mustang, but how many would think of 4 cylinder engines? All of the Hondas and Toyotas with 4 cylinder turbos and performance suspension are late to the game. High gas prices are nothing new. Getting lots of horsepower from small engines and beating the big V8s was Carroll Shelby’s mission when he worked with Chrysler to put some life in their line up back in the early 1980s. Dodge Omnis and Chargers were little cars with 4 cylinder engines and Shelby took the tried and true route of forced induction, stiff suspension and a few other bits for the engine to build 200 horsepower, high mileage performance cars. One big difference with today’s tuner cars was the fact that Shelby was all about performance, wild body kits and sound systems weren’t part of the package.
I thought it might be neat to bring back a few of these old ads to give the tuner crowd a chance to see at least one guy who was doing this decades ago. Pretty cool.
See the Chrysler Direct Connection ads below:
