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When Shelby started working on
his new sports car, in 1999, he natu-
rally used his contacts in Chrysler’s
engineering department. Interest in-
side of Chrysler was tickled and when
his health problems sidelined him,
work on the sports car continued. As
higher and higher levels of manage-
ment at Chrysler learned of the proj-
ect, the idea of having their own high
performance sports car – a direct com-
petitor to Corvette, Porsche and Fer-
rari – began to look better and better.
It eventually landed on the desk of
Chrysler President Bob Lutz. He liked
the concept and took it to Chairman
Lee Iacocca who, no doubt, recalled his
role in what became the original
Cobra project. The Viper was given the
green light. The performance goal was
to beat the original 427 Cobra’s zero-
100-zero time of 13.2 seconds. Since
1965 that had become the ultimate
performance benchmark. With Carroll
Shelby recuperating from his success-
ful heart transplant, he was unable to
take an active role. He was billed as an
“advisor” on the Viper project.
The first Viper, a hand-built con-
cept vehicle, appeared at the North
American International Auto Show in
Detroit in January of 1989 and it was
the talk of the show. The decision was
made shortly thereafter to put the car
into production and the first Viper was
completed in December of 1991. On
Memorial Day of 1991 Shelby drove a
Viper pace car at the Indy 500.
By 1991 Shelby was on the re-
bound. His new heart gave him more
energy than he had in a long time. He
was never very far away from the au-
tomotive world and he had been keep-
ing an eye on the skyrocketing values
of original Cobras. Record selling
prices seemed to be set every time a
car changed hands.
In 1989 Shelby asked noted Cobra
restorer Mike McCluskey to investi-
gate the sourcing of all of the parts
and components necessary to build
exact duplicates of the 427 S/C. When
the prices of original 427 S/Cs began
flirting with the $700K range in 1991,
that got Shelby’s attention. He di-
rected McCluskey to begin assembling
a 427 Cobra S/C using these parts. His
plan was to sell subsequent cars
through his company—Shelby Ameri-
can. As such, they could hardly be
called “replicas.”
In 1965, the intention had been to
build 100 427 Cobra competition mod-
els to meet the FIA’s production re-
quirement in order to race in the GT
class of the World Manufacturers
Championship. By the time the FIA
inspectors visited Shelby’s factory at
the end of April, only 51 cars had been
built. Certification of the 427 Cobra
was withheld and Shelby American
was forced to campaign the previous
year’s 289 Cobra roadsters and Day-
tona Coupes in FIA events. A call to
AC Cars, Ltd. put a halt on production
of competition 427 Cobras and started
building 427 street models.
Shelby knew that 44 427 Cobra
competition serial numbers had never
been issued in 1965. That was a state-
ment of fact recorded by SAAC’s
Cobra registry. McCluskey had pro-
cured enough parts to build fifty cars.
He finished the first one and it was
left in bare aluminum (so it could be
driven without worries about stone
chips, dings or scratches). It was given
the serial number CSX3056 and it car-
ried large, white meatballs on the nose
and fenders with the number “98” –
Shelby’s race number.
Never bashful about publicity,
Shelby showed the car off to the press.
They reacted like sugared-up six year-
olds at a birthday party: Shelby was
building “original” Cobras again and
that was big news! He let the word slip
that one of these “completion cars”
could be had for $500,000 (two-thirds
of the going rate of an original S/C).
Pictures of the car quickly appeared
everywhere, including in the newest
automotive media – television and
videotape.
The cars weren’t “original” but be-
cause their assembly was subcon-
tracted to McCluskey and they were
then sold by Shelby American, Shelby
considered them genuine Cobras. Cars
were built only as orders were re-
ceived and within a couple of years a
half dozen had been completed and de-
livered. But just as there had been a
quick run-up of Cobra prices in the
early 1990s, the roller coaster dip that
followed saw prices begin returning to
where they had been a few years ear-
lier. Those $750,000 427 S/Cs were
now changing hands in the $400,000
neighborhood. Shelby’s completion 427
S/Cs were suddenly not such a good
deal and interest cratered.
Never one to allow himself to be-
come discouraged, Shelby had also
been watching the Cobra replica mar-
ket. There seemed to be no end to the
number of manufacturers who offered
Cobra kits, on a continuum from hor-
rendous to top shelf. Shelby stepped
into the arena with a 427 S/C of his
own. He called it the CSX4000 series
component Cobra. These cars were, es-
sentially, full-specification 427 S/C Co-
bras available with a choice of
fiberglass, carbon fiber or aluminum
bodies. They came without engines
and transmissions and sold for be-
tween $45,000 and $75,000, depending
on the level of componentry.
Realizing that finding decent 427
side-oiler blocks and heads some
thirty years later represented a real
obstacle for CSX4000 owners (and
hence, the sale of the cars). Shelby got
permission from Ford to begin manu-
facturing his own 427 engines in alu-
minum. It was an expensive
undertaking, but he realized there
would be a market for these engines
beyond the cars he would be building.
Shelby’s Cobra business was be-
ginning to spool up. The tax advan-
tages of establishing a business in
Nevada were especially enticing and
soon he was operating out of a small
building in North Las Vegas. At the
same time, he announced his intention
to build a large production facility on
the edge of the new Las Vegas Motor
Speedway complex. His health, how-
ever, was not keeping pace,. In late
1995 his kidneys began failing as a re-
sult of the medications his heart
transplant required him to take to
fight rejection. In January of 1996 he
underwent a transplant operation and
received a kidney donated by his son
Mike.
On top of everything else that was
happening in his life, Shelby was still
interested in building another sports
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 36