fliptop history post shelby

[snakeeyes]

Dave, I searched for that issue of AQ for a long time after I saw one of the shots of the Flip Top featured on the "Now and Forever Cobra" poster. In those pre-Internet days, it took a lot of looking but I did find a copy of the issue.

There has been some confusion about the Flip Top and whether it is the same car that Miles drove at Sebring in 1964, infamously striking the only tree on the course during practice (and breaking several ribs in the process, although he apparently concealed that fact from his teammates). That car had a 427 and a "normal" Cobra body, although Ferrari GTO-like cooling holes were punched in the nose to try to get more air to the Beast. I believe that the Registry indicates that the Sebring car was, in fact, 2196, and that Miles took the chassis after Sebring, re-bodied it with the Flip Top skin, and raced it at Nassau in December of '64. The original, pre-Flip Top body hung on the wall of a shop in California for a period before being installled on another Cobra's chassis. I have seen pictures of that car (don't know the CSX #) on this website a while back, when it was for sale somewhere (may have been in Europe).

Anyhow, to try and answer your question in a long-winded fashion, if all of the above is correct then 2196 also ran a 427 earlier in its life, although it was not known as the "Flip Top" at that point. I guess that could lead to a trivia question for which both "yes" and "no" were correct answers...

The car currently runs a 427, BTW.

The doors are piano-hinged and do hang down to the ground. I recall the crew members at Monterey placing a towel on the tarmac before opening them, but I seem to remember them only doing it on one side, so perhaps one of the doors opens a little more than the other. I am vague on that feature because, when I drove the car later in the weekend, they did not open them but had me climb over the driver's door instead, as the car sits very, very low to the ground...

SS Bob