What if Chevrolet had said yes to Shelby and built the Cobra ?

[Alan P.]

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My first Cobra was chevy powered and built in 1993 by Lanky Foushee, owner and long time crew chief of Group 44 Race Team. He bought the Race shop from Bob Tulius when they stopped racing around 1990. Lanky and John Lyster, the body man at Group 44, (they later started 'Country Cobra' using C4 Corvette suspensions )offered to build me a Dax Cobra to their own specification. They had just finished a Birdcage Maserati Tipo 61 that was featured in Road and Track magazine and wanted to get in the Cobra business.The deal we made was that if I put 50% down prior to the build he would include a L-88 motor that they had at the shop. Lanky is a big Chevy guy and as he put it, had Chevy taken Shelby up on his offer and given him the only engine at the time making a hp per cubic inch (283/283) the later 427SC would have been an L-88 powered Cobra. Guys, I have a Superformance GT40R and a early Hi-Tech 289 FIA Cobra, both with Ford motors, but that L-88 Cobra was bloody fast. There was a easy 100 hp difference between a stock Side Oiler and a L-88.
I ended up selling it to the Gardner Britt, the owner of Ted Britt Ford in Va., and he displayed it on his showroom floor. With the hood locked of course.
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