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Carroll Shelby was a motorsport legend whose heritage helped shape performance cars as we know them today. There is one particular Shelby’s animal project that stands out more than anything, the 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake.
Called the “Cobra to End All Cobras,” the Super Snake became one of the most remarkable cars ever built by Shelby American. In fact, it was one of two examples of high performance produced and was originally owned by Carroll Shelby himself. Now the rare roadster is on sale at Barrett-Jackson, so pull out your wallets and get ready to spend graciously, because this one won’t be cheap. Seriously.
Shelby’s personal Cobra on sale may sound familiar – and it should, given that this will be the third time he’s crossed the auction block at Barrett-Jackson. Previously, the car had grossed $ 5.1 million in its last sale in 2015, and $ 5.5 million in its personal sale under the watchful eye of Carroll Shelby in 2007.
Now I know what you are thinking. $ 5 million is a pretty dime, even in the world of car collecting. So what makes this car more valuable than a regular Cobra?
Aside from the fact that this was Carroll Shelby’s personal car, it was also a direct result of his explosive rivalry with Ferrari.
This particular example started life as one of 23 Shelby Cobra competition cars built. After a brief stint in Europe, he was sent back to America where he was reclassified in semi-competition in order to make the street of the car legal. This meant adding a windshield, mufflers and bumpers to keep the Shelby in compliance with regulations.
Legend has it that Shelby – who loved to travel – made frequent trips to Lake Tahoe with his personal friend and former lawyer, Stan Mullin. Stan owned a Ferrari that could outperform Shelby’s 427 Cobra, and one day Carroll got sick of seeing the Ferrari’s taillights and barged into Shelby’s headquarters to do something.
The result was something completely exaggerated: the Cobra to end all Cobras, the Super snake. Apparently, the Super Snake was a hard beast to tame, as its already ample V8 was complemented by the help of two Paxton superchargers which forcefully fed compressed air through a pair of four-barrel Holley carburetors. The standard four-speed Borg-Warner manual transmission was also replaced with a three-speed Lincoln Cruise-O-Matic car.
The Super Snake is believed to be making somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 horsepower when it was produced in the ’60s, and it was able to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in just three seconds if the tires could grip. And as Barrett-Jackson CEO Craig Jackson recalls – the Cobra “ate that Ferrari alive”.
In 1970, Shelby sold the car to famous songwriter Jimmy Webb for $ 10,500. Webb owned it until it was seized by the IRS and sold at auction in 1995 when it was purchased by Ferrari collector Chris Cox for $ 375,000. In 1998, billionaire Richard Scaife bought the Cobra and held it for eight years before selling it back to Cox. The car was first auctioned at Barrett-Jackson in 2007, fetching a hammer price of $ 5.5 million from collector Ron Pratte, and in 2015 the car recovered to where it fetched a little less – $ 5.1 million.
It is important to understand the heritage that makes people covet this car. It’s the vehicle that Shelby himself woke up entire towns with by opening the accelerator early in the morning. Shelby’s car grabbed the wooden steering wheel as it blew up the engine in a road race and left it near the ditch. The car that was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for apparently going 190 mph, which was considered “reasonable and safe” – which is only the case when you are Carroll Shelby.
Shelby was thrilled with this car when he watched it sell out in 2007, and those kind of memories are carried on by his signatures all over the car.
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