427 Front Fender Flares - 3 Original Styles?

[REDSC400]

In looking at pictures of original 427 Cobras from 1965-67, it appears there are perhaps three basic front fender flares with the major difference to the eye being the bottom rear of the flare or what you might call, for lack of a better word, "the mud flap or gravel deflector" area.

Type 1 or Widest:

It appears that the real S/C cars had the widest mud flap area.
These cars also tend not to have the glove box. These could be about 4 inches wider than Type 3 at the bottom of the flare, near the undercarriage.

Type 2 or Somewhat Wide:

Then there are the second type, also S/C with a wide mud flap area but less than the Type 1. These flares are perhaps 2 inches wider than the Type 3 flare at the bottom. These cars tend to not have the glove box.

Type 3 or Least Wide:

This trimmed back mud-flappless flare appears on cars that were originally street roadsters (Not S/C's), and tend to have under car exhaust systems. These cars tend to have the glove box even if they now have (retrofitted) side exhaust.

Does anyone else have any data or anything else to add on these flares and their attributes to 427 type?

[SCOBRAC]

Actually,

FIA regs required a minimum width in GT class racing. If a car presented itself with a width less than the minimum it was not allowed to compete.

You will often see period photo's of cars with fenders pounded out to nearly flat or any combination therein. At Sebring in 1964 the Cobras were clear favorites. Some of the cars were actually required to rivet on extentions in order to compete.

As hand built cars go the street cars were typically built the same, however various tire / wheel height combinations required various fender profiles. The Dragonsnake drag cars had little in the way of rear fenders to fit the tires they ran.

Hope this helps,

[SCOBRAC]

See CSX 2019... The first dragonsnake in my gallery.

[REDSC400]

Hi Mike:
I was referring to the 427 Cobra's (CSX3xxx series) fender flares. Not those of the CSX2xxx series (260/289). Do you have any data on those?

[Excaliber]

,,,and while were at it I notice the FRONT section down low of the REAR fender is often cut different ways on different 427 cars.

Ernie

[CSX 4027]

All Cobra's were hand pounded and even though there are variations between street, S/C and Comp 427's, there will also be variations car to car. Even variations side to side. There was not any computer imaging and even a trained eye had to look hard side to side.

[grumpy]

REDSC400,
The NARROW HIP cars came form the AC shops one way and the resulting DIFFERENT shapes came about after they were sold/raced from personal choices, repairs after damage, or the tire size changes happening. The "design" group at SAI set out to accomodate the wide oval tires that were just being made available for the performance crowd so they came up with the WIDE HIP Cobra 427 with no "rolled out" lip around the edge. The problem, HALIBRAND could not get the wheels manufactured so after a short run the body reverted back to the NARROW HIP rear so the small tires and wheels didn't look so silly and got lost in the larger wheel well.

result; There were only two sets of bucks at AC so there were two sets of flares directly related to those bucks. NARROW HIP or WIDE HIP.

[REDSC400]

Thanks Guys:
Grumpy, that makes real sense about the wheel issues.
Cheers.

[Excaliber]

It was my understanding that the narrow hip cars were not very popular. Of those built I wonder how many are NOW a wide hip car!

Ernie

[Blue66]

I converted mine in 1977 (somewhere around then )