Jarrett is helping me identify and catalogue everything. Once we are done we will have prints for sale. The Cobra Daytona Coupe was designed by Peter Brock an American who worked for Shelby. If am not mistaked the bodies were actually constructed in Italy. Brock is an editor for some car magazine and a really great guy. I'd like to have the pair and take turns with some of my friends racing each other.
John Surtees at Spa in 1965! A horizontally opposed 8 cylinder motor. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Actually it was a V8; the 12-cylinder was the horizontally-opposed motor. Note the auxiliary fuel tank..................mounted over the engine! Hope it didn't leak........ Paul M
I think that ONE of the Cobra Daytona Coupes was built entirely in America: http://www.norcal-saac.org/archive/csx2287.html A weird tale worthy of a movie script.
Maybe it was the prototype car that was built in Italy. Peter Brock and I had lunch once and I recall him describing the Italians using the proverbial tree stumps to make their shapes.
It must be a very wide angle V8 to allow the velocity stacks to be that far outboard? 150 degree V8? Dino at LeMans in 1965. Do any of these cars with this body style still exsist? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Funny you should say that, given that the AC Cobra's design has always been seen as at best being inspired by and worse case copied from the Touring bodied 166mm barchetta's
Hi David, This is the Dino prototype s/n 0834. Today it carries a regular Targa/Spyder type body. There are a couple coupes s/n 014, 002, however, their bodies are slightly different than the one below. Great shot. Hopefully look for an email from me later today -Jarrett
When I saw the two cars from this angle, I was struck by the similarity of their shapes. I'm sure there was a fair amount of cross-pollinization going on in those times.
And was the GTO (definitive shape in 1962) inspired by the E Type Jaguar (1961)? There are similarities. Nathan
The 166 Barchetta 1949 and later first series Ferrari production car ( Europa 1953 ) by Pininfarina have grills copied by the Cobra. (pic - Europa cabriolet 0311) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Originally Posted by Bertocchi It must be a very wide angle V8 to allow the velocity stacks to be that far outboard? 150 degree V8? The 1500cc V8 F1 is a 90deg with the intakes between the cams. http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/1120/158engine9tz.jpg From 1960 to 1965 there was a rule in sports-prototypes that the windscreen had to be a certain height and width, hence the ugly high windscreens on that Dino prototype and on the P2s. For 1966 they relaxed the rule so the minimum height only had to be at the middle; so the P3 had the rounded windscreen, and this was also fitted to the P2s of the customer teams. All the production 206s Dinos also got a smaller windscreen. Paul M
The original AC was a copy of the 166 Barchetta ... But I really don't think the Cobra Daytona looks that much like the 250GTO ... similar period that's all. It's like saying the new 599GTB looks like the current Corvette Pete
Hello all, I need some help with these two. The box just said "American Sports cars 1958"? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I believe 2 cobra coupes were made in Italy. The roof line is different if you put the cars made in Italy next to the ones made here.
Shelby American built a total of six Daytona Coupes, The first was built by Cal Metal shaping on a wrecked Cobra roadster chassis. The following five were built by Carrozzeria Gran Sport in Modena using new chassis shipped from the AC factory in England. The car in the photo is CSX2287 the prototype coupe. Soon after the picture at Sebring was taken the car would sprout a vent over the driver made by punching a screwdriver through the skin and pulling it back to form a crude fresh air vent. Seems the drivers were melting their shoes on the pedals and nearly passing out due to the new coupes heat. If you compare the first car built in America to the coupes built in Italy you can see they look a bit different in detail. In fact the second coupe, CSX2299 the first built in italy, was mistakenly constructed with an additional two inches of additional roof height. Since six foot two Dan Gurney was a top Shelby team driver and could barely fold himself into the others 2299 became "his" car. Well that's enough useless Cobra trivia on a Ferrari forum for this morning. Keep the old pictures coming. I wasn't even born till about ten years after the Sebring picture was taken and the only context I have for these cars is vintage racing. It's nice to have the perspective of seeing them as they really were. Thanks! -Andrew
Only 1 cobra coupe was made in the US, and that is the infamous one (the one i saw recently) thats now in a private collection. The rest were made in italy because the metalworkers were more skilled over there.
