Coys Auction - True Greats
Royal Horticultural Halls
Elverton St
Westminster
London SW1
Tuesday 7 December 2010
It is not just the staggering performance; nor its pedigree, with its Tojeiro-designed chassis and Allan Turner‘s timeless interpretation of the barchetta body; it is the whole that continues to appeal with the Cobra. The Cobra epitomises a tradition. It harks back to the great sports cars of the 1950s - the Golden Age of sports cars - while embodying the style and optimism of the Swinging Sixties. It is also a marriage between the British and American traditions of sports cars which is appropriate since the Cobra‘s Texan creator, Carroll Shelby, achieved some of his greatest successes, including a win at Le Mans in I959, as a member of the works Aston Martin team.
Although Shelby had been selling Cobras in America since 1962 (AC sent over the bodies and chassis for the Shelby treatment) it was not until 1964 that AC reversed the flow and imported Ford V8 engines to create a