Carroll Shelby’s name is synonymous with performance cars thanks to his decades of building race cars and street-legal models inspired by his race cars, and the new hit film Ford v Ferrari (which opened with a 90 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) provides movie-goers a front row seat to the legend-building as it happened. Massachusetts actor Matt Damon successfully impersonates Texas racer Carroll Shelby, while Christian Bale introduces viewers to driver/engineer Ken Miles.

In the early 1960s Shelby started building his name as a carmaker with a deal to put Ford’s then-new small block Windsor V8 engine into AC Ace sports car to create the Shelby Cobra.