Key Takeaways
The 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake made history on January 21 , 2007 , fetching $ 5.5 million at the Barrett - Jackson Collector Car Auction , a universe platter price for an Americancar , auction organizers said .
The 800 - horsepowersports car was one of just two farm and was used as personal transport by illustrious race driver and performance - railcar builderCarroll Shelbyhimself . The buyer was car collector Ron Pratt of Chandler , Arizona .
Shelby , 84 , was present at the one-year auction , which is hold in Scottsdale , Arizona , and bring together C of collectors who tender millions for raremuscle cars , sports gondola , and other vintage fomite .
" When I built this dual supercharged 427 Cobra in 1966 , I wanted it to be the fastest , meanest car on the road , " Shelby said on theBarrett - JacksonWeb site . " Forty years later on , it will still kick the tail of just about anything in the globe . It ’s the fastest street legal Cobra I ’ve ever owned . " Shelby pegged the car ’s 0 - 60 - mph fourth dimension at just over three instant .
The Super Snake stood out even among the Cobras Shelby built from 1962 - 1968 . Cobras combined Ford V-8enginesand lightweight British AC Ace bodies to create some of the wildest and most seek - after American car ever .
To the Cobra ’s top - line 427 - three-dimensional - inch V-8 Shelby added two Paxton superchargers , have the Super Snake almost double the horsepower of a production 427 Cobra . The $ 5.5 - million car started life as one of 23 Cobra competitor roadsters and was made legal for the street with the addition ofmufflers , bumpers , and other essential .
Shelby in reality created two Super Snakes . The other was originally sold to comedian Bill Cosby . Cosby come back the car after just one movement , using the fright - inducing experience as material on his comedy record album , " 200 M.P.H. , " said Harley E. Cluxton , a collector who owned the Super Snake trade at Saturday ’s auction . indite on the Barrett - Jackson site , Cluxton said Cosby ’s Super Snake was later wrecked in a road accident in which its driver was stamp out .
Cluxton tell the lone surviving Super Snake still has many of its original components , admit its engine blockage , exhaust systembrakecalipers , andoilcoolers .
The car " speaks volumes about the genius in Carroll Shelby , " Cluxton wrote . " His Cobra is the benchmark that delimit the American muscle elevator car . His baby does it all , and without the supporter of ASR , ESP , type AB , engine management ECUs , atomic number 6 fibre , titanium , or the United Nations . How cool is that . "
Indeed , the AC / Shelby Cobra is the epitome of gamey - performance cool . The human being responsible for it is pretty cool , too . Texas good luck charm , a promoter ’s guile , and real talent made Shelby a world - famous race driver by 1959 , when he won LeMans for Aston Martin .
A heart shape soon ended his track career , so Shelby turn to his dream of build the globe ’s quickest mutation machine . The result was a austere terror that ate up the tracks and could bite you on the streets .
The Cobra start out in 1961 as Carroll ’s smartly broker wedding between the senesce - but - light-colored British A.C. Ace roadster and Ford ’s lively raw 260 - Criminal Investigation Command V-8 . A inviolable 289 rapidly followed , giving wash - tune up Cobras up to 380 horsepower and overall 1963 poll in SCCA A - production and the U.S. Road Racing Championship .
Shelby built 655 small - auction block Cobras by 1965 , when he introduced an even harrier " summercater car " ( as he term the breed ) . Because A.C. ’s old transverse - leaf springsuspensionwas never up to Cobra power , the steel multi - tube frame was broaden and tone up for a advanced all - curlicue setup ( still with double wishbone ) and for Ford big - engine block V-8s : either the high - strung racing 427 or the cheaper but every bit torquey 428 - cid rider - car unit . The roadster ’s aluminum eubstance was befittingly altered , make headway macho flame up pilot stretch over gumballtires .
1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake Specifications
With nearly 500 horsepower for just 2,500 pounds , the Cobra 427 was " awesome , spellbinding , " sound out Car and Driver . " Snapping the throttle open at any speed kettle of fish the low-down blow into the small of your back . The machine lurch , jostling , and belches thunder from the side pipes just below yourear . "
Although the railroad car was astonishingly gentle in traffic , Car and Driver , like so many , find it " neither reassuring nor especially comfortable . It rode as if there were cement in the shocks . Thesteeringwas indecisive , the handling twitchy and sharp . " animate being conveniences ? Not here .
Changing times ended this fun in 1968 after only 356 gondola , but others soon offer replication 427s lay out in timbre from ghastly to grand . A revived A.C. Cars acquire its own fine specimen starting in the late eighties . But Shelby struck back at his imitators by having 43 brand - new " 1965 " Cobras built from remnant parts in the mid-1990s .
More " snake in the grass oil ? " Maybe , but the Cobras were also the stuff and nonsense of living caption and immortal functioning . The 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake – and its $ 5.5 million auction price – is proof of that .
