Former headquarters of automotive legend Carroll Shelby sold

The former Marina del Rey headquarters of automotive legend Carroll Shelby was sold along with two office buildings for $6.5 million.

Shelby, once a race car driver, set up shop for his fledgling car company Shelby-American at 1042 Princeton Drive in March 1962, his website said. That year he introduced his first Cobra sports car and in 1963 a Cobra won the United States Road Racing Championship.

The company operated out of a red brick industrial and office complex built in the late 1950s that, according to books on Shelby, had previously been leased by playboy race car driver and entrepreneur Lance Reventlow. Reventlow’s company created the Scarab, an open wheel race car once driven by Shelby.

Princeton Drive is referred to in Shelby lore as being in Venice. The short street, south of the intersection of Washington and Lincoln boulevards, is now generally considered part of Marina del Rey.

Patton Investments sold the 34,000-square-foot industrial and office properties at 1042 Princeton Drive and 1038-1040 Princeton Drive to a limited liability corporation, broker James Wilson of Lee & Associates said.

The buyer plans to remodel the buildings and “reposition� them, he said. Many former industrial buildings on the Westside have been converted to offices for creative firms.

Shelby moved his company to a facility near Los Angeles International Airport in 1965 and now operates his automotive empire from Las Vegas.

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