[ CHASING CARS ] Nigel Boothman’s Market headliner
Shelby prototype comes to Broad Arrow auction with a tick-list of desirable features
A ferocious favourite, this picture-perfect, highly original Shelby Cobra has both provenance and famed connections – will these help it achieve or even pass its $1.5m-$2m (£1.1m-£1.5m) estimate?
This is the fourth Shelby Cobra constructed, from the earliest phase of the model’s history before Carroll Shelby began production at his new base in Venice, California. Instead, this car, like others in the first half-dozen, were constructed at European Cars in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where car dealer Ed Hugus took on the work for an underfunded Shelby. The suggestion that Shelby should contact AC cars to discuss his idea for an American engine in a nimble British chassis apparently originated from Hugus, and just as significantly, Hugus agreed to finance and help build the first few cars once the concept was agreed.
This one, CSX 2003, was billed to Shelby American on 27 July 1962 and finished by European Cars in white over a red interior. Rather than moving straight on to a private customer, it and CSX 2004 were sent to Ford’s Dearborn facility for evaluation. Henry Ford II and his engineers were not going to agree any formal supply agreement for the V8 engines without a close look at the car they would be helping to create, and Ford himself is said to have inspected and driven this car during that period.
‘Henry Ford II himself is said to have inspected and driven this car’
It found its first owner with George Reed of Reed’s Racing Rats (RRR Motors) in Homewood, Illinois, before passing to another keeper who placed it in storage between 1969 and 1979. It was then removed, restored by Cobra specialist Bill Kemper of Barrington, Illinois in 1980 and passed through a few more owners – one of whom gave it blue Daytona stripes – before it found a long-term home in Virginia with Richard ‘Doc’ McAdam. He had the car repainted to remove the stripes and used it as his daily transport to the hospital where he worked as a surgeon. Eventually, retirement for both owner and car saw use become more sporadic between sessions of climate-controlled storage. Declining health now forces the sale of this unusually original and very early Shelby Cobra.
Though not an untouched, barn-fresh survivor, CSX 2003 retains its original 260ci – 4.2-litre – V8, Borg-Warner four-speed manual gearbox and back axle. Original motors are rare enough for any 260ci Cobra, because many were re-engined with 289ci units. An encounter with Carroll Shelby during Mr McAdam’s ownership resulted in Shelby’s signature inside the glove box lid.
Cobra values have been hovering just under £1m for the very best, with the less numerous 427s going a little higher when they appear. All were trumped in 2016 by the extraordinary $13.75m (£9.98m) for the very first Shelby Cobra, consigned by the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust, but there have been few results by which to judge this car’s estimate of $1.5m-$2m (£1.1m-£1.5m) since. A time-warp, 5200-mile example failed to sell at Gooding & Co’s Pebble Beach sale in 2003 at $1.8m-$2.5m (£1.3m-£1.8m), and that has probably influenced the modest guide for this car. It will be offered at Broad Arrow’s 13 August Monterey Jet Centre sale.
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