The New Shelby Cobra

A Little Bit Of Cobra History

I've been a fan of the Shelby Cobra for years, but I never really knew or understood the history of these cars.

There were 3 different models of the Shelby Cobra made. They're known as the Mk I, Mk II and the Mk III. The three models were in production beginning from 1962 through 1967.

There was a brief production run of "new" Cobras in early 2003-2004, but I choose to ignore those cars since they're not part of the original run.

The original cars, named AC Cobras, started off with a 2.6 Litre Ford Zephyr engine. I don't know if you've ever seen a Ford Zephyr, but believe me, there's a good reason that you haven't seen one.

Despite having that engine, the Cobra met with some racing success.

The success of the car, caught the attention of Carroll Shelby, who needed and wanted a car with a V8 engine in it. Long story short, Shelby and the original manufacturer worked out a deal, AC shoehorned a V8 engine into their Cobra chassis and the Shelby Cobra came to life.

Shelby Cobra Special Models

There were a couple of limited production versions of the Cobra. One of the limited editions was the Super Snake.

The Super Snake had Twin Paxton superchargers, racing headers, racing rear end and racing breaks. The Super Snake was fast as all get out and was not for the faint of heart. Shelby's personal Super Snake sold at auction in 2007 for $5.5 million. The super snake is one of the rarest of the Cobra Models.

There was a Coupe model made. 6 total chassis were made for improved aerodynamics down the Mulsanne straight in the 24 hours of LeMans. They were known as Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupes. 1 of these cars was at a recent Cobra owners club meeting in San Marcos TX. I had no idea what I was looking at when I saw it.

Customizations

There were a lot of different models at the Cobra owners club meeting in San Marcos TX. Some of them were more interesting than others, but I think that a green car, with fangs and snake eyes for the headlights was my favorite car.

I don't know enough to know or tell which if any of the cars at the show were originals or a replicas, but I think they look cool nonetheless.

I usually write about social media and internet advertising at my site BigSexyMedia.com. I decided to take a break and share the pictures that I took at the show. I feel that when you talk about cars, you have to have pictures of the cars. Here's my free flickr picture slideshow http://www.flickr.com/photos/25874505@N05/sets/72157616134758898/show/ Please let me know if you enjoyed the pictures.

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