For a Texan chicken farmer, Carroll Shelby was a worldly guy. He raced Italian Ferraris, won the Le Mans 24 Hours in France, and based his legendary Cobra on the British AC Ace sports car. But we don’t think he ever got his hands dirty in China, and despite the stories floating around in the wake of this weekend’s Shanghai Auto Show, we’re pretty sure the same still stands for the company that bears his name.
The confusion comes from the release of a
jacked-up, striped truck from Great Wall Motor. Based on the company’s
Cannon/Pao pickup truck, the Baja Snake edition gets an air snorkel, lift-kit,
rugged fender flares and an aggressive mesh grille that makes it look like the
Snake is scowling at you – or maybe just wearing grizzly, gravel-voiced 1980s
actor, Sam Elliot’s moustache.
Twin racing stripes run from front to rear
and the words “Baja Snake” are emblazoned along the front doors, while wings
extending upwards from the pickup bed behind the cab give the truck a sportier
profile, and hint at performance it doesn’t have.
That’s because all you have to work with
under the hood is 190 hp courtesy of a 2.0-liter inline four mated to an
eight-speed automatic transmission. But you do get nitrogen-filled Fox Racing
shocks, 14 levels of damping assistance, 2-inches of extra ground clearance and
some knobbly Toyo tires. Inside the cabin there are smatterings of Alcantara,
but zero Shelby logos.
