Carroll Shelby's personal Cobra auctioned

[Boorish Grobian]

At the recent Mecom Auction in Kissimmee, FL, Carroll Shelby's personal 1965 427 Cobra sold for 5.4 million bucks!  I'm curious what our resident Cobra experts think?  It's not all original, and has been modified several times before being restored to original condition.  Enormously historic car, but seems crazy money for a car that doesn't even have the original engine in it.  Any thoughts?
Fax

[Lazy B'stard]

Short and probably controversial answer would be that anyone with 5-6 million bucks to spend isn't really interested in the car itself, its firstly an investment, and more importantly an entry to all those top end, invitation only events that these things get transported to, where the rich and famous gather to pull each other off.
 The car is a bit of a triggers broom, used, abused, hot rodded, modified, thrashed, raced, crashed, enjoyed. Which is what a Cobra should be. Such a sad end.

[smokie]

Fax may not be aware of Triggers Broom. It's from an old UK sitcom, a slightly stupid street cleaner says he has had the same broom all his working life, its only had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in it's time.

Sounds quite apt...

[jimclark]

Enormously historic car, but seems crazy money for a car that doesn't even have the original engine in it.  Any thoughts?
Fax

Very short answer......it was Mr. Cobra, Carroll's, own....

[Boorish Grobian]

I wasn't familiar with Triggers Broom, but it sounds entirely appropriate in this case.  I've never been a advocate of turning vintage & historic cars, and bikes into garage queens, they were meant to driven.  However its pretty unfortunate how this piece of history was Frankensteined by miscreant post Carroll owners, one heretic actually installing a automatic transmission in it.  Hugely historic chassis, but that's about the only original part left on it. The phrase more money than sense springs to mind...
Fax

[jimclark]

"Sense" is in the garage of the new owner.........

[Boorish Grobian]

Did a little digging, it was Shelby himself who had the autotragic installed, don't know what reasoning was behind it, not something I would have expected from him.

[Lazy B'stard]

Did a little digging, it was Shelby himself who had the autotragic installed, don't know what reasoning was behind it, not something I would have expected from him.

I know the Super Snake, his Cobra with the twin Paxton blowers constantly ate gearboxes, so it was converted to auto to handle the huge torque. Maybe the same, or he just prefered the auto?

As an aside, it probably doesn't make much difference. They have so much grunt that the first two gears are useless. Mine pulls happily in top from 20mph all the way up to 160+ (off the Queens highway of course)

[Boorish Grobian]

Thanks for the info LB, that makes sense that the original box couldn't handle the extra BHP & torque.  When I watched the auction on TV, the commentators left me with the impression that it went through a series of owners after Carroll's passing, but after doing some reading last night, it appears that most of the mods that were done were at Shelby's request, different engine, transmission, paint, etc.  so it sounds like it went through a evolution over its lifespan.  It has been restored to its original specs.
Fax

[Lazy B'stard]

On the Super Snake.... two were built. One for Shelby and the second went to Bill Cosby. He returned it the next day as unusable. It was then sold to some young buck who fired it off a cliff into the Pacific.

Also worth a look are the Dragon Snake Cobras. Only a handful were built. Most are still in drag spec but theres a stunning green one doing the rounds that was converted back to road use.

[Steve Pyro]

This Dragon snake sold recently and, I believe, will make an appearance at Goodwood this year - https://www.dkeng.co.uk/ferrari-sales/1139/blue_chip_competition_cars/shelby_cobra_dragonsnake.html

[jimclark]

I'm presuming (which one should never do...) that those interested have seen https://monthly.mecum.com/2020/10/09/carroll-shelbys-personal-427-cobra/ ,
but just in case, there it is/was.

[Lazy B'stard]

This Dragon snake sold recently and, I believe, will make an appearance at Goodwood this year - https://www.dkeng.co.uk/ferrari-sales/1139/blue_chip_competition_cars/shelby_cobra_dragonsnake.html

Great looking car. Would love to build something like that with loads of period drag race parts