427 Street Car Options

[PROFESSOR FATE]

I bought my car in March of 1969 from a college kid at UCLA. He was graduating, had a job lined up back East, and didn't want to take the car with him. I hope he wasn't an Economics major, because he would probably be suicidal knowing what the thing is worth now. I think he was the second owner, but I'm not sure. He had owned the car for about a year, and had only made one modification. He took it to a local gas station to have the intake manifold replaced, when the magnesium one corroded and started leaking water.

I didn't know much about Cobras at the time, not that I do now, either. I didn't realize there were Comp cars, SC's, and Street cars. I just thought people ordered them with whatever options they wanted. This particular one had what I later found out was called the light weight engine, sidepipes, a roll bar, and nothing else. No hood scoop, no coolers, no swaybars, no fans, nothing. I really regretted not having the hood scoop, and planned on adding it later; but as the car became more and more valuable, I somehow lacked the nerve to put that hole in the hood.

Anyway, that was just a long way of saying that I wonder how the car ended up equipped that way. Apparently Shelby was not the greatest record keeper. And, it would not be likely that the dealer would retain records from the mid 60's. So, am I simply going to go to my grave never knowing how my car got that way?