Peter Brock is an automotive and trailer designer, author and photo-journalist from the United States of America, who is best known for his work on the Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe.
Peter Elbert Brock (named Elbert after his grandfather E.J. Hall, co-designer of the Liberty L-12 engine and co-founder of Hall-Scott Motor Car Company) grew up primarily in the Sausalito area of northern California. When he was 16 years old he saved up to buy a 1949 MG from the back of the shop where he worked. In addition to the work Brock did on the car, he painted it white so the car's livery would match the U.S. international racing colors of blue and white.
Subject ID: 43215
MorePeter Brock is an automotive and trailer designer, author and photo-journalist from the United States of America, who is best known for his work on the Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe.
Peter Elbert Brock (named Elbert after his grandfather E.J. Hall, co-designer of the Liberty L-12 engine and co-founder of Hall-Scott Motor Car Company) grew up primarily in the Sausalito area of northern California. When he was 16 years old he saved up to buy a 1949 MG from the back of the shop where he worked. In addition to the work Brock did on the car, he painted it white so the car's livery would match the U.S. international racing colors of blue and white.
Brock was first exposed to professional racing when he went to his first road race at Pebble Beach, California in 1951, photographing cars and drivers, including Phil Hill in the 1952 race, but was still too young for a racing driver's license since the SCCA minimum age requirement was 21 at that time.
Upon graduating from high school, he enrolled at Stanford University in the engineering department. He subsequently dropped out, and later drove to Los Angeles to enroll at the Art Center School (Art Center College of Design). When asked for his portfolio, he had brought no drawings with him, so instead returned to his car, made some drawings of hot rod cars in his ring binder, returned to the admissions office and presented his "portfolio", and was admitted.
Having turned 21, which allowed him to obtain his SCCA race license, Brock returned to California. In Detroit he'd been working on a mid-1950s Cooper that had run at Le Mans. Returning to California with the Cooper, he started working for Max Balchowski at Max's Hollywood Motors shop during the day and worked on his race car at night. In 1961 Carroll Shelby and Paul O'Shea met at Riverside Raceway to discuss opening a driver's school. When Shelby and O'Shea got into a disagreement about who would work for who, O'Shea left. Shelby hired Brock as his first paid employee, running the Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving. Brock worked at Shelby American until the end of the 1965 season on the Shelby American brand, creating the logos, merchandise, ads, and car liveries. He designed the Shelby components of the Shelby Mustang GT350s and designed race cars for Shelby such as the Lang Cooper, Nethercutt Mirage, De Tomaso P70 and the Shelby Daytona Cobra coupes that won the FIA GT World Championship in 1965.
In December 1965 Brock started his own design firm and motor racing team, Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE).
Subject ID: 43215
Subject ID: 43215