Shelby Cobra Daytona

The AC Cobra was a British sports car built in the 1960s. It was not the first car to combine a lightweight European chassis and aluminium body with a big American V8 engine, but it is possibly the most famous. The later, larger-engined cars are still among the highest-performing road vehicles ever sold.

In an effort to improve top speed along the legendary Mulsanne Straight at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, a number of enclosed, coupe variations were constructed using the leafspring chassis and running gear of the AC/Shelby Cobra Mark II. The most famous and numerous of these were the official works Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupes. Six were constructed in total, each being subtly different from the rest. AC also produced a Le Mans coupe, The car was a one-off and was nearly destroyed after a high-speed tyre blow-out at the 1964 Le Mans race. It has now been completely rebuilt and now sits in private hands in England. The third significant Cobra-based coupe was the Willment Cobra Coupe built by the JWA racing team. Mike Mc Cluskey of Torrance California (one of the best Cobra restorers in the world), builds an exact replica of the racing Shelby Daytona coupe, these cars are exact reproductions of the originals. Also, a road-going Shelby Daytona Cobra replica is being manufactured by Superformance, a well known kit car company. These cars use Peter Brock's original bodywork designs, scaled up by 2% to increase room inside, and a newly designed spaceframe chassis, they are powered by Chevrolet small blocks engines and also their shape somewhat resemble the originals, they are just lookalikes. Brock's Australian namesake, the race car driver, was killed while driving an GM-powered replica of a Shelby Daytona Coupe in competition in Australia in 2006.

// Extracted from Wikipedia (see full text clicking here)//

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