[What'saCobra?]

Yep, it's mostly semantical.

i was fortunate enough to have run the 289 Cobras starting in 1964. i had been running 'Vettes and got tired of losing the race between the starting line and the first corner. i would try to follow them into the corner and generally lost it trying to follow through to the apex. The 'Vette just didn't have the brakes or the lightness to accelerate out of the corner, either.

So, given that they were production cars and very close to street at that except for the Webers and the lopy cam, they were winners near every race.

i used to carry the empty race sidepipes in the passenger side of the car, strapped to the rollbar brace. i had a minimal seat and cushion for the bim. The trunk had the D-zus detachable race windshield, which SCCA said was OK. The car still got over 15 MPG on the Webers, if i cooled it, so the big tank gave me plenty of range!

At the time, it was the nuts and i thought i was going a zillion miles an hour on the track.

But, they asked a lot of you also. Things would break and spares were a little dicey, though Phil Remmington was a champion helper many times.

It was only years later that i drove my first 2 liter CanAm car and learned what a real race car could do. Talk about easy! And twitchy! Set-up was everything. 525 kg and over 300hp with 14" rims (wide, that is.) After that and a few other serious rides, i knew the Cobra wasn't a real race car, just the quickest of its' production siblings.

But, they are the most marvellous street racers as ever there was. Sure, Austin Healey won more races in its' class and more championships. So did Jaguar and Porche.

You are correct that without Shelby, AC would never have been such a winner, but that completely discounts all their wins before CS ever saw a Chris Craft.

You might have read Trevor's correct comment that Shelby pooh-pooed AC's success and competence after he got his business going. i would not ignore those criticisms, because they are true and pretty unkind from someone who the Hurlocks trusted and believed in. Try fixing a ding in an alloy body if you want to understand how much skill is required to build one of these suckers. Not quite resin, lay-ups and vaccume pumps.

Shelby himself never built anything we can find. Quite unlike Brian Angliss, who can personally fabricate anything on a Cobra and has done so.

CS has three major accomplishments to his everlasting credit, though.

He was a world-class racer, a driver of true excellence and courage and his record proves it.

He has had a marvelous run with the Cobra for the last 40 years of off and on love and money.

And, somewhere, there are several tens of thousands of dead chickens that hate his guts.

Hey, two out of three is better than most of us.

Many of us are still pissoired at his outbursts, which persist even after these very brief 40 years or so. But, then again, like Lady Thatcher, i don't trust either the Ruskies or the Germs either. (and that from a guy who worked in Russia for over 10 years and is still married to a Bavarian lass.)

But, nobody...no body... had the street cred and cashe' of the Cobras. Any kind of Cobra in my opinion. And it is still true today.