1965 Shelby Cobra CSX4246

[smith0494]

Hello everyone! I'm a first-time poster. I'm an attorney who is handling an estate of a gentleman who owns a 1965 Shelby Cobra CSX4246 Convertible Roadster. This is the 24th of 40 made. I'm getting conflicting accounts of what the vehicle is worth. The family wants to liquidate. For instance, Sotheby's wants to auction and placed value at $250K. Other appraisers have stated between $140K and $400K. I'm told it was built by Carroll Shelby himself and he signed the vehicle. It has a little over 2000 miles.

[Bob Gaines]

Hello everyone! I'm a first-time poster. I'm an attorney who is handling an estate of a gentleman who owns a 1965 Shelby Cobra CSX4246 Convertible Roadster. This is the 24th of 40 made. I'm getting conflicting accounts of what the vehicle is worth. The family wants to liquidate. For instance, Sotheby's wants to auction and placed value at $250K. Other appraisers have stated between $140K and $400K. I'm told it was built by Carroll Shelby himself and he signed the vehicle. It has a little over 2000 miles.

First off it is a valuable car being a SA built continuation car. I will try and put the value range in perspective. The 1.3 Million are for the vintage Cobras built back in the 60's. This is not one of those . Carroll Shelby's company Shelby American built the car just like the other vintage and other continuation cars. The vintage high value Cobras stopped being produced in 1967.There are many different companies that build Cobra replicas. Since Shelby American made the vintage cars ,when they started to build them again in more contemporary times they were referred to as "continuation cars". Carroll Shelby's company built the cars but CS was not out in the plant wrenching on the cars to build them. It is a 40 anniversary edition which is more or less special badges on the car to commemorate the time. It is apparently one of the 40 built or badged to commemorate for the occasion . It is a sub group of the many hundreds of other 4000 series continuation Cobras built between the early 1990's and present day without the badges basically. It is important to mention that unlike the vintage cars where Shelby American sold a running driving car so as to get around emission and crash standards the continuation cars were not built complete and were sold in various states of completion . At the very most it was sold as a roller with out engine or drivetrain . Someone else had to add those components and get the car running. Because of being sold as a roller there are countless variations some worst then others. As has been mentioned it is important to determine if it has a fiberglass body and the more expensive aluminium alloy body option. That difference is maybe 80K more if aluminum.  You also have another thread started on the same subject http://www.saacforum.com/index.php?topic=9572.msg79350#new   .Best of luck with marketing the car.