Super Snake twin Paxton story in a major car magazine, added art my own

[HistoryBuff]

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2013/09/25/incredible-barn-finds-der-snakemeisters-own

I never asked what the inspiration for the hood scoop was, it had a sort of Batman feel to it...

[Bill]

Sadly, so much mis-information in those old articles. You would think the author would be cringing and not posting links to this article. If I was him, I'd be embarrassed. 

[98SVT - was 06GT]

Sadly, so much mis-information in those old articles. You would think the author would be cringing and not posting links to this article. If I was him, I'd be embarrassed. 

Mis information has never bothered him. But then maybe people realized it was mostly BS so he changed his field to art.

[HistoryBuff]

Sorry if you have more info. My sources were:
creator of car (CS himself)
the singer
the guy hiding the car in the Valley
I wish i could've found the full page ad from the IRS after they confiscated it. I believe it was in Hemmings.

[propayne]

Why didn't you use Jimmy Webb's name?

This is a pic from his memoir that came out a few years back.

- Phillip

[shelbydoug]

Maybe Webb's the "singer"? 


About 1978, I advertised in the "Snakebite" wanting to buy a 427 Shelby Cobra.

At the time, they were in the $30 to $40 thousand range.


One Saturday morning I got a long distance call from Canada (Toronto). It was Webb. Seems if I gave him $115,000 in cash, he would tell me where the car was.

When I asked for paperwork, he said, "just go get it". (the car and it was "apart")

That was "just" a little more then I had in the budget and the terms of sale were not exactly comforting.

Within the year, Harvey Paxton "had" the car and as I recall was for sale by him for years if not decades after that.


I may be mistaken but I think Paxton still owned it when it brought $5.5 million at Barett-Jackson one year?

It is a car with very strange specifications and as Cosby said "a do-hickey on the hood where the superchargers lived". 


As far as accurate journalism goes, never ruin a good story with accurate facts. You can always blame bs on what someone else told you, use it as filler and you certainly don't want to be pigeon holed as an aggressive investigative reporter that no one likes or just a ho-hum boring specification writer do you?

[gt350hr]

 Doug ,
   Harvey Paxton is in real life Harley Cluxton as noted in Wally's article.

[shelbydoug]

Doug ,
   Harvey Paxton is in real life Harley Cluxton as noted in Wally's article.

Protogen. That's what wifey wants me to take, but I keep forgetting it! LOL!

Yes Cluxton but either the termites ate that book or I over watered the plants and the pages stuck together? I don't remember now.

I've gotta' go now. I'm still looking for my keys.

I thought it was Carley Kluxton? Hum?

Who the Hell is Harvey Paxton?

...found the keys. Wifey had them. Now where are her's?



That's not the worst Freudian mistake I've made. The wife wanted to know exactly who Susan is? I said which one? I don't know any Susans?

[shelbydoug]

It is an odd thing about human memory that you literally don't remember what you just did with your keys but something like a conversation that happened 45 years ago you tend to remember?

I want to say that I asked him, "is it running" and he answered, "no. It's apart".


I do give him a lot of credit for being smart enough to buy the car in the first place. It doesn't matter to me why.

Artists and celebrates are often difficult to predict. For a twenty something year old caught up in a world wind of success, he did alright.

The only thing I'd add after discussing this with someone else at the time was the other person said, "he's hiding out in Canada from the IRS and is afraid to come back".

I don't doubt that you talked to him in LA but the discrepancy is probably in the timing?

[6s2055]

Everyone has a story about the Cosby car. I tried to buy the car from S&C Ford (believe Al Revera was the sales agent). My dad would not counter sign the loan. Tony Maxium was a very good client of S&C...think he did a lot of fleet buying. Back then S&C we're to place the insurance on the car but it slipped some how. The car had a major problem with the paxtons sticking. One of their mechanics who knew Tony actually took the car home to try and work on the Paxton linkage......way before his accident. After the car was wrecked it was taken back to S&C and put on the second floor of their used car warehouse two blocks from the dealership on Market Street and covered with a tarp. I lost a bet to a friend who said I couldn't find a spot with a silver dollar on the body that wasn't damaged.
By now I purchased another Cobra (csx2192) and I'd never seen a set of side pipes like those. Without going into details, I ended up with the without thinking that no way would they fit on a 289.They remained in my mothers garage till 1972 when she mentioned it was time to get "my junk" out. If I remember right the car went to Gordon Gimble. Gordon told me a number of years back that he still the vin #.
At 76+ my memory is slipping but I do remember this pretty well.

[6s2055]

Just a follow thru....about 10-12 years back Cosby was in Sparks Nevada to help open a new restaurant for a friend and you could get your picture taken with him. I had his album 200mph that Carroll had signed and asked if he could sign it. His reply was he wasn't doing any autographs.
However he did sign the two girls pictures in line behind me! Aw, "carma"!

[shelbydoug]

Everyone has a story about the Cosby car. I tried to buy the car from S&C Ford (believe Al Revera was the sales agent). My dad would not counter sign the loan. Tony Maxium was a very good client of S&C...think he did a lot of fleet buying. Back then S&C we're to place the insurance on the car but it slipped some how. The car had a major problem with the paxtons sticking. One of their mechanics who knew Tony actually took the car home to try and work on the Paxton linkage......way before his accident. After the car was wrecked it was taken back to S&C and put on the second floor of their used car warehouse two blocks from the dealership on Market Street and covered with a tarp. I lost a bet to a friend who said I couldn't find a spot with a silver dollar on the body that wasn't damaged.
By now I purchased another Cobra (csx2192) and I'd never seen a set of side pipes like those. Without going into details, I ended up with the without thinking that no way would they fit on a 289.They remained in my mothers garage till 1972 when she mentioned it was time to get "my junk" out. If I remember right the car went to Gordon Gimble. Gordon told me a number of years back that he still the vin #.
At 76+ my memory is slipping but I do remember this pretty well.

Great story. Was the body really in that bad of a condition?


I know of multiple carb linkages. It takes you a while to understand that they need to be centered and what that means.

If you don't get it just right, they tend to jamb at wide open throttle.

Even the simple 427/GT500 dual 4's take quite a while to get them right if you have no previous experience with them.

The T/A with front facing carbs is much easier to figure out.


With an automatic transmission it could be lethal? Manuals are bad enough with the car all of a sudden not idling bellow 4,000 rpm!

The Webb car was CSX3015, the Shelby car, which was a "left over" Comp chassis.
I've NEVER seen ANYONE else attempt to use that Edelbrock intake? The mechanics must have cursed it something fierce?

[6s2055]

The body was really that bad! No way could that ever be salvaged.Not sure why or how the side pipes were not attached to the car at the warehouse. They were off to the side, but still under the tarp. I also remember that Tony did not die in the car but shortly after in the hospital. If he had been wearing a seat belt he would die in the car. He was thrown out. Again, that's how I remember it!

[gt350hr]

 Doug,
     You had to use a cross ram on twin Paxtons because they separate the engine into two four cylinder engines ( no common plenum) and keep the superchargers from "fighting" against each other as they would in a "common plenum" situation. Vince (Granatelli) found this out very quickly on in the project with poor performance on the factory dual four intake. The cross ram did the trick and each supercharger only "fed" 213.5 cubic inches. The cross ram linkage was fool proof but adapting the Cobra linkage and getting full throttle was a challenge. The linkage was akin to that from a child's Erector set.

[shelbydoug]

Doug,
     You had to use a cross ram on twin Paxtons because they separate the engine into two four cylinder engines ( no common plenum) and keep the superchargers from "fighting" against each other as they would in a "common plenum" situation. Vince (Granatelli) found this out very quickly on in the project with poor performance on the factory dual four intake. The cross ram did the trick and each supercharger only "fed" 213.5 cubic inches. The cross ram linkage was fool proof but adapting the Cobra linkage and getting full throttle was a challenge. The linkage was akin to that from a child's Erector set.

I can imagine those Cobras might have had some flat spots on the tops of the front fenders from the mechanics leaning against them incessantly?

I know that both my 2x4 and Weber throttles need to be "centered" in order for them to open completely and close completely.

Both can be just a little tricky. Fortunately I don't need to lean over hand formed aluminum fenders beaten a little thin on the curves?

Actually on the Pantera you need to climb into the engine compartment and sit on the headers.

On both of my 2/4's you need to take a lot of mental health breaks in between sessions.

I'm sure that the linkage of those dual Paxtons is unique.  Probably would have worked out better with a cable throttle rather then trying to figure out the opening ratios on those universals?