$5 million dollar Shelby Cobra

[JakeR22]

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bret,

I thought it was a guy out of San Diego that bought the GM bus last year. The guy that bought the 1954 Oldsmobile, not Pontiac, concept car the year before wore a Ferrari hat & bidded against the guy with a Tennessee hat, & it was for a museum in CO owned by some of the Discovery Channel owners. However, after watching 10 hours of cars roll by yesterday

, I may have that swapped as well.

What's up with selling the musical items?!?

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The bidder from San Diego is Ralph Whitworth. He was the other bidder for the Futureliner against Ron Pratte.

It was thought that he (Ralph) initially had bid $4.1 million but turns out he was signifying he was "out" instead of raising his bid. There was quite a bit of confusion as to who bid what, but it eventually got squared away between B-J mgmt and Mr. Pratte.

The Oldsmobile F-88 concept car sold in 2005 for $3.0 million, beating a record that had stood for 15 years.

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Is this the guy that was bidding on the Futureliner?

http://www.directorsforum.com/Bios/bio_whitworth.html

Looks kinda like him. But it's hard to say when he's not slouching down in his chair. Seems to come accross as an a-hole on screen

. Maybe he is, lol.

 

[benjamming]

That's him. I get the same idea while watching the tube. But, who knows.

 

[ewetho]

Look at current price for Ferrari 250 GTO and Shelby Daytona Coupe's. They have been up in that neighborhood for a while. Just you'd find those at Pebble Beach not Barret Jackson.

 

[ScottB]

I thought I had read that Carroll Shelby turned down around 8 million for that car before?
Might have been another (the very FIRST Cobra?)

Scott

 

[gedcruise]

The Ford-engined AC has nothing like the international racing record of various Ferrari and Porsche models.
Let's be honest. There is no such thing as a "Shelby". C. Shelby took an existing car from a British cottage industry, and modified it using someone else's engine.
Porsche built their own cars, and their own engines. Ferrari did the same.
On Le Mans test day in 1971, a Ferrari hit 240 mph on Mulsanne. A Porsche then raised the mark to 248 mph. No "Shelby" was ever in this league.

 

[bretfraz]

No one is comparing the racing record of Shelby cars (the company) with Ferrari or Porsche (the companies). Everyone knows that both Ferrari and Porsche have focused most of their energy on racing and have designed many racing-only cars. I think the Daytona coupe is the only pure race car Shelby designed and built.

While we're being honest, remember that the first Porsche's were made up of many VW parts and the body of the 356 was designed by the same guy who designed the Beetle. Most Ferrari fanatics will admit the first Ferrari was comprised primarily of Fiat parts, and everyone knows he raced Alfas and was employed by them prior to striking out on his own.

Obviously Carroll Shelby did not follow the business example of Enzo or Ferdinand. If he did I'm sure he could have built a car competitive in performance to any Ferrari or Porsche. Shelby Automotive Racing Company was closed in Dec 1969, so your LeMans performance comparison is purely theoretical.

 

[rshaw125]

This Cobra was an automatic???? Sounds kind of strange.

 

[dbvettez06]

Some people have WAY more money than brains, but, wish i where one of them

 

[Jett Rink]

gentlemen,
rshaw125: here it is. yes, it is a 3 speed automatic. call me a throwback, but the wonds "automatic transmission" and "sports car" don't really go together.

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/carlist/cardetails.asp?In_AuctionID=221&In_LotNumber=1301

 

[9296D21B14]

Maybe I'll slap a set of 13" wheel covers from WalMart on the 96B14 and roll it out on the block to test the market. No reserve.

 

[rshaw125]

The Mustang auto shifter just looks completely out of place. Kind of like the 'auto Ferrari daytona' in Miami Vice years ago.
If this Cobra was once a race car then it may have been manual at one time. So a genius changed it to auto.

 

[gedcruise]

I guess Ferrari used the Fiat V-12 in his first cars?
You are right to note that the early 356 used many VW parts. Porsche did not use a VW body, however, and the 550 did not use the 4-cam VW.
Shelby was more of a one trick pony, although to be fair, the big-block cars have little in common with the original AC.

 

[XB70]

The Autoextremist's take (bottom of page) on the "...Gordon Gekko Memorial Car Auction, aka the "Barrett-Jackson,"...".

But wait, there's more.

 

[addyguy]

I think I've read that this particular Cobra was built with an automatic, b/c it was the only tranny at the time that could harness the output of the engine - Ford manual tranny's at the time apparantly just weren't strong enough. I may have that wrong, but I think I've read that in a magazine article on the car some years back.

On a similar note, I've also read that many early 427 Nova's were automatics, b/c the TH400 was better at holding up under the engine than even the M-22.......

 

[CBDFrontier06]

Since this car is destined to become someone's garage queen, I doubt the automatic bothers anyone. I agree that an auto seems kinda out of place here, but I doubt I'd mind with 800 horses under my right foot. Maybe Ol' Shel decided to make it an 800hp boulevard cruiser after its racing career ended, if it was raced.

 

[rshaw125]

But this car was a competition Cobra. Surely you would not suggest they were racing around Euro. tracks with an auto box??

 

[CBDFrontier06]

Nah..it was probably switched at some point..unless it has always been Shelby's personal car (never raced), in which case maybe he wanted it that way.

 

[Scott_Tucker]

Originally Posted By: ewetho


Still hew was offered $10 Million once for a green 260 Cobra he owns and turned it down flat. It even has ripped seats. Oh year that was Cobra #1.


I'm restoring the last Cobra ever built, it'll be interesting to see how much that one is worth.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

Yeah, the competition Ford race cars (the GT40 comes to mind) performed so poorly they took Le Mans away from Ferrari (and Porche) for four straight years until the Europeans banned them.

Carroll Shelby got it right with a few cars. The Cobra was a spectacular car. I also like the early GT350s. Ford is finally coming out with what looks to be an equivalent with the new Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca (Secca?) model.

I haven't been able to make the links work, but if this is one of the two King Cobras (supercharged 427s), I don't think they were ever raced. They were one of (or actually two of) specialty cars. Bill Cosby got one new, and sold it not long after. Said it had too much power for him to drive.

 

[morris]

THERE IS NO WAY ANY Shelby Cobra IS WORTH THAT MUCH MONEY. some idiot might PAY that much. thats different than being worth that much. havent we all payed to much for something? a idiot and his money are soon parted.