Tony Shelly

Tony Shelly ( born February 2, 1937 in Wellington, † October 4, 1998 in Taupo ) was a New Zealand car racer.

The popular New Zealander Shelly was able to win the first major auto race in which he participated. With its private Cooper, he won the Grand Prix of Tere Tonga in 1958.

In 1962, Shelly to Europe and was taken by John Dalton under contract. Although Shelly did not know any of the tracks, on which he raced, he celebrated a number of successes. With a Lotus 18 he was third in Lavant Cup and fifth in the Lombank Trophy. In 1962, he also drove his only Formula 1 World Championship race. At the Grand Prix of Great Britain at Aintree he fell out with an overheated engine. After the failed attempt to qualify for the Grand Prix of Germany in Italy, he undertook another attempt to get into a Formula 1 field. The German Wolfgang Seidel asked him a Lotus 24. When he failed again in qualifying, Shelly returned to New Zealand.

Shelly drove two more years professional car racing and then built a trading company for motor vehicles on. He raced to the early 1970s, just more than an amateur.