fliptop history post shelby

[PDHse]

Hi, does anyone know the history of the fliptop after shelby sold it and does anybody have a photo to post on the site of it in the 1960s in private hands.

[Robert Evans]

The Shelby Registry has quite a lengthy description of who the cars' owners were following the sale from Shelby American under CSX 2196. If you don't have access to the registry, let us know and we can try to post something later. It shows all of the owners up to 1997. (It was at one time going to be purchased and converted into a sprint car, and it even had a 302 installed in it!)

[bonyhadi]

Bob,
Please post the history, especially arround the period when Dave Ridenour drove it at Vacaville.
Thanks.

[PDHse]

Thanks Bob, i only have the 1987 edition of the registry.

[Robert Evans]

Time is short this weekend, but I'll post something as soon as I can. BTW, Rich Mason is the current owner of the car and I under stand that he is going to convert it into a swamp buggy.

[RickLee]

Actually I think its turning into a early model fuel injected corvette by way of osmossis

[Cal Metal]

Wrong on both counts. Rick recently picked up a DragonSnake, and that car is that the center of his universe--at the moment, anyway.

[snakeeyes]

I don't have my Registry handy, but I know the car was owned by Al Rivera of San Francisco after Shelby American sold it. Rivera enlisted Dave Ridenour to drive it, and he had a fair amount of success in it during 1965 and '66--I need to revisit the Registry and see how much more detail is provided--

SS Bob

[Thorin]

Bob,

You probably know this, but there are some nice pictures of the flip top in Automobile Quarterly, vol. 22 #3. They appear to be relatively new pictures, in 1984.

Did the "Turd" always have a 390? Evidently at that time CSX 2196 was owned by Chris & Lorraine Gruys. I also believe it was the first picture I have seen of how the driver's door opens - folds down (does the mirror actually rest on the ground?

Anyway, say these and immediately thought of you.

Dave Lowell

[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