Carroll Shelby was first, last, and always a road racer! The big block and small block Cobra's were built for road racing as was the Cobra Daytona Coupe and the GT 40. The only reason he lent his expertise and his name to the Shelby Mustang's was because of Ford's insistence!!! AKA, appease the Big Sponsor!!!! Even then, the Shelby Mustang's that became the icon's of SCCA A and B Production classes were special built cars. The clones that hit the Ford dealerships as Shelby 350's and 500's were a civilized version of the race cars. Later on he also did some work with Chrysler because his old pal from Ford, Lee Iacocca was there. Anyway, Carroll Shelby was a racer, not a Hot Rodder.....

Light cars with big engine's work good, but it started long before Mr. Shelby began building Cobra's.....Back to the days of the dry lakes, B-Ville, and deserted sections of highways all over the country guys there were stuffing big V-8's into Model A's and T's and running them on the street! Big Caddy, Olds, and Chrysler V-8's stuffed into T and A bodies were the fore-runner of today's glass bodied T's, A's and all the other combinations, not the Cobra.....

Kind of a rambling rant, but my opinion is that if it is modified from stock to go faster and or handle better then it did out of the showroom and it spends it's time on the street, regardless of it's country of origin, it's a Hot Rod!!!!! Just my opinion I guess, but having been in this deal for so many years I don't like to see cars being "classified" as something other then a Hot Rod, because some group or faction seems to think that only their style of car is a "real" Hot Rod!!!!!