Rare Shelby Cobra cars to be sold to support planned Gardena museum

Plans to build a Southland museum honoring the late auto racing legend Carroll Shelby will be boosted by the sale of more than three dozen Shelby 427 Cobra competition racers that were originally planned to be built in the 1960s but never completed, according to the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust.

Fifty years after the plans were first drawn up for the Shelby 427 Cobra competition chassis race cars, the roughly 40 that were never built will finally be completed and sold, with a portion of the proceeds going toward the planned Shelby Automotive Museum.

The Shelby 427 Cobra competition series cars were originally planned to be ready for the 1966 FIA World Championship. Shelby’s 289 Cobra was fitted with the 427 NASCAR-based engine and designed with an entirely new coil spring suspension and a stronger frame to accommodate more power.

More than half of the 100 Shelby 427 S/C cars were built, but production was halted when Shelby’s focus shifted to Ford’s GT-50 race program.

“The Shelby 427 Cobra is the most iconic car in post-war history,” said Neil Cummings, co-trustee of the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust. “Shelby American didn’t complete the mandatory 100 units in time to race for the FIA World Championship in 1966. This was because Henry Ford II … wanted Carroll to drop what he was doing and take over Ford’s GT-50 race program.”

Cummings said the 50th anniversary of the original plans for the 427 Cobra “seemed an appropriate time” to complete the production.

Each Shelby 427 Cobra comes with the CSX VIN and badge number originally assigned in 1965, as well as an “MSO” and “Title” document signed by Carroll Shelby himself. The cars cannot be registered for use on streets, but each car will be specially registered in the Shelby American World Registry.

Efforts to build the remaining cars with the help of restorer Mike McCluskey started in 1988, but Shelby requested that the 427 be put on hold after a legal dispute with AC Cars, which claimed to be behind the Cobra’s creation.

“After we forced AC Cars to admit that the Cobra was purely Carroll’s vision and all Cobras were built by, or under license to Shelby American, Shelby contemplated restarting production,” Cummings said. “But, he was already busy building continuation component Cobras and moving his operations to Las Vegas. Carroll told me he wanted to suspend the 427 Cobra Competition Chassis program until after his passing so he could focus on other projects involving new model year vehicles.”

Shelby died on May 10, 2012, at age 89.

The planned 40,000-square-foot Shelby Automotive Museum will be located in Gardena. According to the trust, the museum is in the design/build stage.

People interested in bidding on one of the Competition Chassis Shelby 427 Cobras can contact the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust at (310) 327-5072. Five of the cars sold for $500,000 between 1990-92.

— City News Service