by Mike Gulett –
It is amazing what a few years will do to the status of just about everything. This is well demonstrated by the Shelby Cobra Daytona CSX2287 race car.
Shelby Cobra Daytona CSX2287 – Now (photo by Michael Furman)
The Shelby Cobra Daytona CSX2287 is the first motor vehicle to be listed in the US National Historic Vehicle Register.
Yet in 1966 it was relegated to the classified ad section of “Road & Track” magazine (see the ad below) and could be bought for a small fraction of what it is worth today.
It was also lost in storage for about 30 years. This is no way to treat a national treasure but the owners at the time, including the infamous music producer Phil Spector, did not know how important this race car was. This special Cobra Daytona is now in the Simeone Automotive Museum in Philadelphia.
Shelby Cobra Daytona CSX2287 – Then
One reader has pointed out that the seller in this Road & Track classified ad was American Russkit, a supplier of slot cars and other slot car supplies.
Above is a 1965 Shelby American factory poster celebrating the world championship (my father gave me a poster just like this one in 1965). That one is long gone but the one shown above is hanging in my office. Shelby is the only American company to win the FIA world GT Manufacturers Championship.
Below is another Shelby Cobra Daytona factory poster celebrating the win at Sebring in 1964 – this one also adorns my office wall.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Read more about the history of this important American race car at the link below.
The Long Lost Prototype Shelby Daytona Coupe: The Saga of CSX 2287
Another great read that sent me down the historical rabbit hole on a wet & dreary Sunday morning….
The $12,500 asking price adjusted for inflation (afi) would have been $99,850 in 2020, and today would be $118,700. The Shelby Coupe was last sold 23-years ago for what is estimated to have been $4,000,000 ($7,146,829 aji), to the late Neurosurgeon Dr. Frederick Anthony Simeone, founder of Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum.
FWIW, based on several other articles, after the car was used to set 23 land speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in early November 1965, it was bought by slot-car racing icon Jim Russell from Carrol Shelby for around $4,500 ($35,946 afi), after seeing it for sale in a classified ad (NFI). He sold it to up-and-coming record producer 26-year-old Phil Spencer for $7,500 ($69,087 afi) a year later. Around 1968, after Spencer had turned the car into a moving violation collection device and parked it, he purportedly sold it to his mansion manager George Brand — a former police officer — for $1,000 ($8,841 afi) who eventually had it stored-away by his daughter Donna Brand O’Hara, who owned had it for the next 30-years. It’s those last 30-years when it gets bizarre.
There’s a great article from July 2001 at Car & Driver to which one ‘ Wallace A. Wyss’ was a contributor for anyone whose interested: Death, Deception, and the $4 Million Cobra
These record prices are reflecting less the physical properties of the cars than the role they play as a mode of nostalgia. The audience for which classic cars can inspire this demand is dropping in numbers. I see continued price drops in all but the top tier of these kinds of cars, whose demand will be maintained by the increased positive sekwing of worldwide wealth distribution. I have a mid-tier classc and have seen auction prices drop, partly because younger buyers have so much competing with my era which I hold in esteem.
Dr Simeone will go down in automotive history as one of the few who recognized the fact that you just don’t restore significant vehicles.
I had the pleasure of running against Bob Holbert and Dave Mc Donald in this car at the 1964 inaugural Daytona 13 Hour Continental. Unfortunately, the way the gas tank was designed, with inlet/outlets on both sides, they had a splash and a big fire during an early refueling stop.
Dave also got burned feet that day, but not from the pit fire. As with many of our front-engined “specials” in those days, the footwell, pedals, and in fact the whole cockpit got hot as Hades. Don’t really know how Dave would have continued, as that Cobra motor generated plenty of BTU’s! (Having said that, Bob and Dave did well in the car at Sebring the following month.) And this famous coupe DNFd that day, but was saved for posterity.
Ironically and sadly, Dave perished in a fire, with Mickey Thompson’s strange-handling car at the Indy race three months later.
I met Dr. Simeone about 10 years ago at his museum. When I entered I asked if I could speak to him and he graciously came down from his office upstairs to meet me. A true gentleman. I loved the way the museum was laid out and the background on the walls added to the look of the various vintage competition cars that were all over the place. When I finally came to CSX2287 I could truly appreciate its’ patina and could see why some collectors like to leave their rare cars alone. Sure, some collectors could easily spend $250,000 and up to restore this beauty properly but I couldn’t. I would just get it to run right, replace the tires and brake pads and occasionally take it to a concours event or loan it to another museum. Something’s are best left the way they are.