CSX 2000 To B Auctioned

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by moore_rb

or bare aluminum...

My personal opinion is that the Cobra's debut story in Sports Car Graphic magazine was the origin of the multi-color rumor; because all the photos that accompanied the May 1962 SCG story showed CSX2000 in bare aluminum with "Shelby" scribbled across the trunk in cursive. (Sports Car Graphic was the precursor magazine to MotorTrend)

When SCG magazine came back to Shelby a few months later to run a couple more final tests before publishing the article, the car had already been painted yellow.

Now, whether or not Shelby "represented" this yellow car as a different car...? Who knows? - Urban legend.

Road and Track then tested CSX2000 (in yellow) for their debut article about the Cobra a few months later.

So, to me, this suggests that CSX2000 was only ever painted 2 colors- Yellow over aluminum, and blue over yellow-

The chips in the paint would coraborate this viewpoint

Whether the yellow car was represented to be a different car than the bare one, or whether the blue was represented to be a different car than the yellow one... I don't know.

Too bad all those magazines didn't publish a photo of the serial number tag with their articles...

Easy to tell CSX2000 from any other Cobra. The long decklid, the offset fuel filler and the over riders that are different from all others. The Road & Track photos are clearly CSX2000 as are some others; all of which appear to be either bare alloy or yellow. The "painted numerous colors" story appears to have no basis in fact that can be photographically verified that I am aware of.

"Sports Car Graphic" was an imprint of the Peterson Publishing group and a sister publication to "Motor Trend". They both published and existed at the same time until SCG's demise in late 1969.