The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 8 You Can ’ t Make This Crap Up The click-bait title said ”40 Awe- some Old School Cars” so we were cu- rious. The first of the 40 “old school” cars was something described as a 2006 Weineck Cobra [ pictured at the right ]. It was hard to imagine it could get worse, but it did. First of all, there was no attempt made to define old school cars. The forty examples were all over the board: old cars like a Dusenberg were along side a ‘55 MGA. There was also a ‘92 Jaguar XJ220 (so much for the “old” in old school). And there were Ferraris; a bunch of them. They included a ‘62 250 GTO (actually the photo was of a ‘64), a ‘67 330 P4 (shown twice as two separate cars), an ‘84 288 GTO, a ‘64 America and a ‘68 Dino. They included one GT40, an au- thentic MK I Spyder (the photo was current, taken from an auction cata- log). But no Shelbys or muscle cars other than a ‘70 Firebird Trans-Am. However, they saved the best for last. The final listing was a “1961 AC Cobra.” Of course, we know there is no such thing. The first Cobras were 1962 models. And the picture is a 427 replica with twin roll bars. But hang on – there’s more. The text (which we’ve included be- cause you probably wouldn’t believe us otherwise) identifies the Cobra’s orig- inator as John Shelby (an easy mis- take to make in that Carroll Shelby has only been associated with the Cobra for about sixty years). It contin- ues, saying John Shelby initially asked Chevrolet for an engine but they re- fused, not wanting competition with their own Corvette. As if it was that simple. Shelby ini- tially did go to Chevrolet in 1960 with his idea for a sports car based on a car designed by coachbuilder Sergio Scaglietti and was given three engines by Chevrolet’s General Manager Ed Cole. But when Cole thought that Zora Duntov, who was very protective of his Corvette, might have gotten wind of Shelby’s secret project he called Shelby and told him the cars never ex- isted. Three cars had been completed and as a result of Cole’s call to Shelby, they never got any publicity. Shelby eventually built the Cobra, and, according to this fairy tale, took the highest honors in racing, including the 24 Hours of LeMans. The Cobra never took the highest honor at Le- Mans by winning outright, although it did win the GT Class in 1964 (Dan Gurney/Bob Bondurant, 4th OA and 1st in GT in a Daytona Coupe). We envision some weak-chinned millennial pajama-boy sitting in the basement of his parents’ house at his computer, pounding out this crap with- out bothering to research anything, and being amazed at actually being paid (although probably minimally) for his efforts. Unfortunately, this is the way fu- ture generations will learn Cobra his- tory. And as frustrating as that is, there’s not a thing we can do about it.