Carroll Shelby was a motorsport legend whose legacy helped shape performance cars as we know them today. However, there is one specific pet project from Shelby that stands out more than anything: the 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake.
The Super Snake was created the “Cobra to End All Cobras”, and became one of the most striking cars Shelby American has ever built. In fact, it was one of only two high-performance examples produced and originally belonged to Carroll Shelby himself. The rare roadster is on sale now at Barrett-Jackson, so take out your wallets and get ready to spend mercifully, because this bag is not going to be cheap. Serious.
Shelby’s personal Cobra offering for sale may sound familiar – and it should, as it’s the third time he’s crossed the auction block at Barrett-Jackson. Previously, the car fetched $ 5.1 million when it was last sold in 2015, and $ 5.5 million when it was personally sold under Carroll Shelby’s watchful eye in 2007.
Now I know what you’re thinking. $ 5 million is a nice penny, even in the world of car collection. So what makes this particular car worth more than an ordinary cobra?
Aside from being Carroll Shelby’s personal car, it was also a direct result of his explosive rivalry with Ferrari.
This particular example started life as one of the 23 Shelby Cobra competition cars built. After a short time in Europe, it was sent back to America, where it was again classified as a semi-competition to legalize the motorway. This meant that a windscreen, mufflers and bumpers were added to make the Shelby comply with the regulations.
According to legend, Shelby, who loved to travel, regularly traveled to Lake Tahoe with his personal friend and former lawyer, Stan Mullin. Stan owned a Ferrari that could surpass Shelby’s 427 Cobra, and one day Carroll got tired of seeing the taillights of the Ferrari and stormed into Shelby HQ to do something about it.
The result was something far too lavish: the Cobra to end all Cobras, the Super hose. The Super Snake was reportedly a difficult animal to tame, as its already spacious V8 was supplemented with the help of two Paxton propellers that powered compressed air with a pair of Holley four-barrel carburetors. The standard four-speed manual transmission Borg-Warner has also been swapped in favor of a three-speed Lincoln Cruise-O-Matic car.
It is believed that the Super Snake produced somewhere around 800 horsepower when it was produced in the 60s, and that it could bolt from zero to 60 miles per hour in just three seconds if the tires got stuck. And as Barrett-Jackson CEO Craig Jackson recalls – the Cobra “ate that Ferrari alive.”
In 1970, Shelby sold the car to well-known songwriter Jimmy Webb for $ 10,500. Webb owned it until it was seized by the IRS and sold at auction in 1995, where it was sold by Ferrari collector Chris Cox for $ 375,000 was purchased. In 1998, billionaire Richard Scaife bought the Cobra and held it for another eight years before selling it back to Cox. The car was first auctioned at Barrett-Jackson in 2007, which secured a $ 5.5 million hammer price from collector Ron Pratte, and in 2015 the car went up again where it brought in slightly less – $ 5 , 1 million.
It is important to understand the legacy that makes people crave this car. This is the vehicle with which Shelby himself woke up entire villages when he opened the gas valve in the early hours of the morning. The car that grabs Shelby by the wooden steering wheel while blowing the engine during a road race and leaving it near the ditch. The car that was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol because it apparently drove 190 km / h, which was considered ‘reasonable and sensible’ – something that is only the case if you are Carroll Shelby.
Shelby was ecstatic about this car when he saw it sell in 2007, and such memories live on through his autographs in the car.