Daytona Coupe

Price $15 000 USD
Engine V8
Position Front Longitudinal
Valvetrain OHV
Displacement 4728 cc / 288.5 cu in
Bore 101.6 mm / 4.0 in
Stroke 72.9 mm / 2.87 in
Compression 10.0:1
Power 287.1 kw / 385.0 bhp @ 6750 rpm
Hp per litre 81.43 bhp per litre
Bhp/weight
Torque 460.98 nm / 340.0 ft lbs @ 4000 rpm
Redline 8000
Drive wheels RWD
Front brakes 15.0
F brake size 279 mm / 11.0 in
Rear brakes Drums
R brake size 260 mm / 10.2 in
Front wheels F 38.1 x 17.8 cm / 15.0 x 7.0 in
Rear wheels R 38.1 x 17.8 cm / 15.0 x 7.0 in
Front tire size Goodyear Stock Car Special 7.75x15
Rear tire size Goodyear Stock Car Special 7.75x15
Steering Rack & Pinion
F suspension Lower A-Arms w/Transverse Leaf Srings, Koni Tube Type Adjustable
R suspension Lower A-Arms w/Transverse Leaf Srings, Koni Tube Type Adjustable
Weight 1043 kg / 2299 lbs
Wheelbase 2286 mm / 90.0 in
Front track 1354 mm / 53.3 in
Rear track 1341 mm / 52.8 in
Length 4610 mm / 181.5 in
Width 1753 mm / 69.0 in
Height 1422 mm / 56.0 in
Transmission Borg Worner T-10M 4-Speed Manual
Gear ratios 2.32:1, 1.69:1, 1.29:1, 1.00:1
Final drive 3.09:1
Top speed 305.8 kph / 190.0 mph
0 - 60 mph 4.01 seconds
0 - 100 mph 8.81 seconds
Epa city/hwy 385.0

The Cobra roadsters dominated the American tracks in 1963. Looking at the coming 1964 racing season, Shelby had his eye on European racing and realized he needed a new weapon to "whip Ferrari’s ass." Ferrari was the ongoing World Manufacturer’s champion year after year.

The closed coupe Ferrari GTO's proved to be tough competition on the tracks of Europe. The Coupe had the top end needed on those courses. The Cobra roadster just wasn't fast enough to beat the Ferrari team. The open cockpit roadsters had the aerodynamics of a barn door. There was no denying the smooth, closed, body of the Ferrari GTO's gave the GT 250’s a tremendous advantage. Even though the engines in the 250’s were 2 liters smaller, they were faster on the long straight aways then the more powerful Cobras.

In 1962, Enzo Ferrari all but forced the FIA to accept the highly modified 250 GT Berlinetta as a "production coupe." The FIA rules stated that 100 identical cars had to be built in order for it to qualify to be raced. Ferrari had sold a lot more than 100 of the 250 GTO's. But a loophole in the rules existed for the small European manufacturers. They could make slight body modifications to allow for changes in technological advancements during the model year. The FIA called it "normal evolution of type." When Ferrari submitted the "modified" Berlinetta GTO that he wanted to race, it had more than a few upgrades. In the 1962 papers he turned into FIA, the racing Berlinetta GTO was given a new suspension, brakes, shocks, a magnesium-cased transmission and a new six-dual-throat Weber carb manifold on top of a 3.0 liter V-12. Ferrari did not submit the required photos of the "optional body." The FIA bucked and said the GTO was a new car and wouldn't qualify. Ferrari put a lot of pressure on them to accept it as a GTO. The FIA finally agreed. In doing so, Ferrari opened up the rules to special cars from other manufacturers like a lightweight E-Type Jaguar, the Aston Martin 212 coupes and eventually the Cobra Daytona Coupe.

The European racing cars were all built with engines at or under the 3.0 liter, the FIA limit. It was a lot more economical to use the existing tooling and molds in use for the production cars. The Ferrari GTO circumvented this requirement, too, opening the way for a 5.0 liter Cobra.

The Ferraris were unbeatable. The GTO was the perfect car for this racing series at this time. No other manufacturer's car could keep up with them. During 1963, while the Cobras were dominating the American USRRC racing, Ferrari owned the European FIA circuit. The Shelby American Cobras did so well in the US that Ford agreed to back a Shelby effort against the Ferraris.

The power of the Cobras on the short American tracks was unbeatable, another right car at the right time in the right place. But on the longer European courses, speed was the key. The Cobras had run against the GTO's early in 1963. The open roadster, small block Cobras couldn't go exceed 160 mph. The closed coupe GTO's were considerably faster.

The aerodynamics of race cars was just being discussed seriously in the early 60's. Most people, thought aerodynamics belonged in conversations about jets. Wind tunnels and cars were never in the same conversation. A 24-year-old Shelby American employee named Pete Brock convinced Shelby he could develop a new weapon for the Shelby arsenal, a coupe. Brock was originally hired to run the High Performance Driving School at Shelby American. He was a graduate of the Art Center School in Los Angeles and the youngest designer ever hired by General Motors. At GM he did a lot of styling work on the Corvette Stingray during 1957-58. Brock was also Director of Special Projects at Shelby American. He was convinced if a closed coupe could be built, it would have the speed needed. Aerodynamics were the key, Brock was convinced. He said "he was influenced by some obscure German papers written by Wunibald Kamm." Kamm wrote about air flow and how important it was not to fight the air. Brock told Shelby it would take four times the horsepower to get a roadster to go 200 mph than it would to 100 mph. It would be a lot easier to reduce the drag of the cars than to increase the horsepower that much. And the car would qualify for FIA rules under the new interpretation used by Ferrari. The coupe project started in October 1963

Designing a Cobra coupe was not high on the list at Shelby American. Chief engineer at Shelby American, Phil Remington, didn’t think a closed coupe was the answer and basically didn't support the project. Brock drew up some designs working with Cobra driver, Ken Miles, and one of the fabricators, John Ohlsen. Miles believed in the project. So did Ohlsen, a New Zealander, who has just joined the team. But more importantly, Carroll Shelby was also convinced.

The team was given Cobra CSX 2014 to form a body on. A plywood body buck was built on the 289 chassis. Aluminum panels were formed on the buck into a likeness of the coupe model. It passed the test. If nothing else, it sure looked like it could outrun the Ferrari’s. Not everyone was impressed the same, though. Benny Howard, an airplane builder from the 1930's, who stopped at Shelby American one day told Shelby it would take 500 horse power to move that body at 180+mph. The body design shape "won't work," Howard told Brock. Could the hot 289, so successful in the roadsters, provide enough horsepower to push the coupe to 200 mph?

Blueprints were sent to California Metal Shaping in Los Angeles for the body and inner panels. The first coupe was assembled at Shelby American as CSX 2287. The car did not look like any other car. The roof was odd shaped, the rear end was chopped off and it had a movable wing on the rear. These features didn't just look right to the rest of the Shelby team. But the die was cast and the coupe was assembled. Shelby backed most of Brock's design but he listened Phil Remington about the "ring airfoil" and opposed Brock on it. A compromise was reached. The car would be tested without the wing. If it was needed it would be added later.

According to Pete Brock, the key to the success of the Shelby cars was the people picked to build them. The best fabricators and builders in Southern California came to Shelby American to see what was going on and what that Texan was up to. A lot of the new recruits were USAC racers, experienced in oval track racing. They may not have been engineers but they did have a lot of practical experience and Shelby trusted individual ability. They knew how to build cars that "went fast and stayed together", according to Brock. The Cobra Coupe was the final product of a group of experienced racers. Very few drawings were made and no formal engineers worked on the project.

At Riverside during the track tests, Ken Miles topped the track record by 3.5 seconds and also broke the Cobra record. Miles hit 183 mph without even pushing the car. It was 20 mph faster than the roadsters and Riverside's straight aways were not long enough to open it all the way. Brock had been right. Shelby was impressed and pleased. Miles however, felt the suspension wasn't stiff enough. One of the fabricators, Donn Allen had just joined the Coupe team. With his help, Brock's team put a triangulated subframe over the twin-parallel-tube frame to increase the torsinal stiffness. A basic roll bar added the finishing touches to the chassis strengthening. Over the weeks of testing, larger Goodyear racing tires were added making the car even faster. The tighter frame helped the bigger tires work even better to hold the Coupe to the track. And the car didn't demonstrate any lift at high speed. Brock still argued the coupe needed a rear wing for the European tracks but Shelby, Miles and Remington said the car was good enough and needed no more improvements. The only other changes made in preparation for Daytona was some small plastic fences attached to the windscreen pillars to divert the air coming off the windshield to the rear brakes for cooling and a couple of panels riveted on to cover the rear tires. By the time the car was ready for Daytona the team at Shelby American had a lot different opinion of the Coupe. Everyone was now excited about its debut on the Daytona track. It was being called the "Daytona car."

The first car, CSX2287, was tested at Daytona Beach in preparation for the Daytona Continental in February, 1964. Even though Deke Holgate, public relations manager at Shelby American, called it a Cobra Daytona Coupe named after its introduction at this race, the Cobra was rarely used to describe the coupes. They were just Daytona Coupes.

At Daytona, Shelby substituted Bob Holbert for Ken Miles as Dave McDonald's co-driver. Shelby considered Miles too valuable to risk on the track in an unproven car. Miles was real disappointed because the coupe was built around him. And he knew he could drive the Coupe to victory at Daytona. He tried to convince Shelby that he knew the car better than anyone else and he knew how to get the most out of it. But Shelby prevailed and made Miles team manager instead of a team driver. Shelby figured that with the experience of Holbert and McDonald in the roadsters, they would quickly learn how to drive the Coupe. After all the Coupe was a lot easier to handle on the track than the Cobra Roadsters. Both were right.

Miles called him back in after a few laps to replace the engine oil in the differential. Since Holbert was in the pits, the fuel tank was topped off. The tank was still full from the prior pitstop. Gasoline spilled out of the tank onto the hot rear disc brakes and exploded. The car was immediately engulfed in flames. The wiring burned and the differential was finished. Shelby pulled the Coupe from the race. It turned out the cause of the problem in the first place was the seals deteriorated after the differential overheated. The inexperienced drivers in the coupe failed to turn on an electric circulating (a fuel) pump for the differential sometime in practice or early in the race causing it to get too hot. Miles knew about the pump and when to turn it on, the new drivers didn't. Could Miles have won with the Coupe? Would the differential have failed anyway?

After it competed at Daytona, the Coupe was reconditioned for the 12 Hours of Sebring coming in March, three weeks later. McDonald and Holbert made no mistakes this time and the won decisively. But the drivers baked in the car in the Florida heat. The Coupe hadn't been run for 12 hours before. The cockpit wasn't vented properly. Too much heat stayed in the cockpit. The team made some quick adjustments when they realized the drivers were suffering. Even though the modifications weren't enough, it helped the drivers survive the heat enough to win.

Ford was impressed with the performance of the Coupe and gave Shelby financial backing for a full assault on the European circuit. Five more coupes were needed. Four chassis’s were built at AC Cars in England then shipped to Shelby American for modifications. Shelby American was so swamped with work, the assembly of the coupes was subbed out. From the California factory, two out of the five chassis’s were shipped to Carrozzeeria Gransport in Modena, Italy. The plan was to also ship the prototype with the unfinished chassis to Modena for use as a model. But the prototype ended up in Sarthe, France, for official testing. Ford also sent two new GT40's. The GT40's were the center of attention for the press, Ford billed the GT40's as "the world's most technologically advanced race car." Both cars crashed during testing. The GT40's just weren't stable at speed. One of the GT40 drivers, Jo Schlesser, a French driver, who had crashed one of the GT40's, was given the chance to drive the Cobra Coupe. He loved the car. It handled so much better then the GT40's he was able to drive it to the fastest speed of the testing, 198 mph. Shelby asked him to drive the Coupe in some of the upcoming European races which he eagerly agreed to.

During the Coupe's first race at Spa, Brock's forecast of high speed instability was correct. Phil Hill found the car so unstable at over 180+, he brought the car in. The GTO's were more stable at high speed because of their tail wing. Phil Remington fabricated a wing for the Coupe the night before qualifications. The next day the Coupe handled so much better that Hill broke the track record and won the pole position. During the race, the Coupe lead from the start and held the lead until it began to have fuel problems. Hill pitted the car. Some kind of strange fibrous material was found in the tank. The filters and fuel pump were clogged. It took long enough to clear out the fuel system that Hill had no hope of catching up. Back on the track Hill gave one of the great heroic efforts in racing history. He not only caught up to the cars in laps, but broke the lap speed record three times. The fuel system clogged again and he was forced to pull in. The stuff in the fuel tank suggested sabotage but it could never be proven.

Meanwhile, Carrozzeria Gransport was trying to build the two new Coupes. Without the prototype to copy the design from, Gransport used their own disgression. The roof line didn't look right so they corrected the mistake giving the roofline a different contour. The error was discovered when the prototype finally made it to Modena. It was too late to correct the second Coupe, CSX2300. The two Coupes were shipped only days before the LeMans race to be prepped. The new Coupe, Chassis CSX2299, was assigned to Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant. The prototype was given to Chris Amon and Jochen Neerspasch. The original prototype was definitely faster than the new coupe. In practice it was 11 mph faster in the Mulsanne straight away. The cars were identical except for the roofline. But during the race, Gurney driving the new coupe actually took his class and ran the fastest GT lap at 3:58.7. The prototype team was disqualified for an illegal start after the Ferrari team protested. It wouldn't start so the Coupe was jump started in the pits with a separate battery, definitely an illegal move. It was leading the GT class when it was black flagged in the 10th hour of the race. Ironically, the first "wrong roofline" Coupe was also the winningist Coupe. Dan Gurney was larger and taller than Ken Miles, who the coupe's seating was designed around. He fit better in the taller CSX2299. As the premier driver in many of the races, his coupes were better prepped and serviced, so he won more of the races despite the taller profile of the car. Gurney was also a very aggressive driver and won more races because of it. (The cars were not built with sequential numbers. CSX2287 was built and modified then used as a model for CSX2286 that became the pattern for CSX2299 and CSX2300. )

The Ferrari/Daytona Coupe battle continued the rest of season. The last race was scheduled for Monza, Italy. Ferrari lead by a few points. Shelby had four Coupes ready. Ferrari was in trouble. For the first time in years, it looked like Ferrari wasn't going to win the European Championship. Somehow Enzo used his clout to have the last race cancelled. Ferrari had more points than the Shelby team giving Team Ferrari the trophy once again. Enzo Ferrari couldn't win the 1964 trophy with his cars so he used what no one was expecting to win, political clout.

The next year, Ferrari pulled his team completely out of GT racing. He knew he couldn't beat that upstart Carroll Shelby's Daytona Coupes, so he didn't try. Instead, he went after Ford's GT40's in the Prototype Class. The struggling GT40 team just couldn't pull it together. Ferrari successfully won the Prototype class. Shelby's Coupes won the 1965 World GT Championship hands down. The Coupes won almost every race they were in. In fact in some of the races, they came close to out running the Ferrari prototypes and the GT 40's. (Ford threw in the towel on the GT40's after the embarrassing 1965 efforts and turned to project over the Shelby American with instructions to win with the GT40's and not the Daytona Coupes. The project ended there and the Coupes became a part of history.

Pete Brock finished his story with these words, "The Daytona Cobra Coupes were the last of the Specials, a watershed point in race car design. From 1965 onward, race car technology followed the lead set by the Broadley/Ford GT40, cars engineered on paper and built with the most technologically advanced materials available. Never again would there be a successful design distilled only from the cumulative experience of a team's race mechanics, who literally envisioned cars on the shop floor and built them as they proceeded, The Daytona coupes were the end of an era."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WyXstSYIgA

The Daytona Cobra Coupes

Chassis # CSX2287 - The Prototype

The very first prototype Cobra Daytona Coupe. The only coupe that was built entirely at the Shelby American race shop in Venice, California. It has an extensive race history, competing at Daytona, Sebring, Reims, Spa Francorchamps, Oulton Park TT, and Tour de France. It was driven by Dave MacDonald, Bob Holbert, Jo Schlesser, Phil Hill, Jochen Neerpasch, Innes Ireland, Andre Simon, Maurice Dupeyron, Bob Johnson, Tom Payne.

Chassis CSX 2287 won the GT race at the 12 Hours of Sebring in March 1964 with Dave MacDonald and Bob Holbert behind the wheel. The race at Sebring was the first time that a Cobra Daytona Coupe won the GT III category in an FIA race!

At Le Mans in June 1964, the car was finished in Viking Blue metallic very distinctive white painted front fenders. The drivers were Chris Amon and Jochen Neerpasch. They led the GT class until the car was disqualified in the 10th hour for an illegal jump start due to battery and alternator failure.

This coupe ended its racing career by setting 25 USAC/FIA world records at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, in November 1965. It was driven by Craig Breedlove, Bobby Tatroe and Tom Greatorex.

This particular Daytona Coupe has been missing for over 30 years. Recently, it was "found" again. The story reads as another unique chapter in the Shelby cars history. Be sure to read more about this rare and long missing coupe.

Chassis # CSX2299

#5 Daytona Coupe This was the second Coupe built and the first completed at Carrozzeria Gransport (Italian for "Grand Sport Coachbuilders") in Modena, Italy. It competed in nine FIA races (LeMans, Reims, Goodwood Tourist Trophy, Tour de France, Sebring, Oulton Park TT, LeMans, Enna, Daytona), won four times (LeMans '64, Tourist Trophy '64, Daytona '65, Sebring '65), and driven by Dan Gurney, Bob Bondurant, Maurice Trintignant, Bernard de St. Auban, Jo Schlesser, Hal Keck, Jack Sears and Dick Thompson. At LeMans in 1964, drivers Gurney & Bondurant, took First Place in the GT III Class. It was painted Viking Blue.

Dan Gurney in 1965 driving this Cobra Daytona Coupe took the World Manufacturers Championship from Ferrari.

Chassis # CSX 2300

This was the only time that a Cobra Daytona Coupes was painted with a white body finish with blue and red stripes. Chassis CSX 2300 was leased from Alan Mann by Ford of France for this race only. It competed in the national “Tri-Colore” of France. Well known French drivers Andre Simon and Jo Schlesser drove this coupe at the very tough Nurburgring course. The car finished 3rd in the GT III category, and 12th overall. After the race, this white coupe was returned to Alan Mann Racing in England where it was repainted in the official Guardsman Blue metallic and white stripe of the 1965 Shelby American team.

Chassis # CSX2601

This was the fourth Coupe built and the third completed at Carrozzeria Gransport. It competed in eight FIA races in 1965 (Daytona, Sebring, Monza, Spa, Nürburgring, LeMans, Reims, Enna), won four times in GT III class, at Monza, Nürburgring, Reims, Enna), and driven by Bob Johnson, Tom Payne, Bob Bondurant, Allen Grant, (German) Jochen Neerpasch and Jo Schlesser (an outstanding French driver who was killed in an accident at the French Grand Prix in 1968).

At Reims, 3-4 July 1965, drivers were Bondurant & Schlesser. It was painted Guardsman Blue. They won the GT III Class. It was at Reims on July 4th that this car earned the points needed to secure the 1965 World Manufacturers Championship.

Chassis # CSX2602

This was the fifth Coupe built and the fourth completed at Carrozzeria Gransport. It competed in six 1965 races (Daytona, Sebring, Monza, Spa, Nürburgring and LeMans) and was driven by Rick Muther, John Timanus, Lew Spencer, Jim Adams, Phil Hill, Jack Sears, John Whitmore, Peter Sutcliffe and Peter Harper. The #59 Swiss Red Coupe was campaigned in 1965 by Scuderia Filipinetti. Prior to the Le Mans race, chassis CSX 2602 was also raced at Daytona (driven by Rick Muther and John Timanus) in 1965, Sebring (driven by Lew Spencer, Jim Adams, and Phil Hill) in 1965, Monza (driven by Jack Sears and Sir John Whitmore) in 1965, and Nurburgring (driven by Jack Sears and Frank Gardner) also in 1965.

The #59 Daytona Coupe with British drivers Sutcliffe & Harper, ran in the distinctive Red & White Swiss colors only for the '65 LeMans event June 19-20, 1965.

This interesting color combination was the well known colors of the famous Swiss racing team, the “Scuderia Filipinetti”. The latter had already earned a reputation for themselves racing Ferraris. When Ford used up their allotment of entries for the 1965 Le Mans race, they asked Georges Filipinetti (owner of the team), to buy a Coupe and enter it as his annual entries. Thus the unusual color scheme. Peter Sutcliffe and Peter Harper (well known Ferrari drivers) were the team’s drivers at Le Mans. They vigorously raced the red and white Cobra Daytona Coupe until the 10th hour when a blown engine put them out of the race. After Le Mans, chassis CSX 2602 was returned to Alan Mann Racing. It was repainted in the Shelby American team colors and never raced again.

In spite of the numbering sequence, CSX2286 was the last of the Daytona coupes to be completed.
At one time, the chassis & body were stretched 3" for an experimental aluminum 390 cu. in. big block
that Ford was developing. Then Ford switched their support to the GT-40, and the big block coupe was abandoned.

Note that this was not the 427 "Super Coupe" that was the subject of the Monogram slot car.
This was a totally different car that Pete Brock designed for Shelby, but it too was abandoned when the GT-40 project came along.

If you look closely at the photo of the engine compartment, notice the wheel centers are painted black.
This was the only one of the coupes that had this done.

CSX2286 was converted back to the standard wheelbase and 289 engine in time for LeMans in 1965, with Dan Gurney & Jerry Grant as drivers. They set fast lap but DNF'ed with a clutch failure after 15 hours.
This was the only race for this car. In 2001, the car was owned and campaigned on the Vintage Circuit by Rob Walton, of the Wal-Mart Family!!!!!

CSX2299 was the 2nd of the Shelby Daytona Coupes completed. In 1964, Dan Gurney
& Bob Bondurant drove it to a 1st in GT class and 2nd overall at LeMans. The car
shown here is in the 1965 configuration, as it ran at Sebring with the number 13.
Notice the wide white stripes and it is painted in the darker Guardsman Blue paint.


This car was the first of the coupes whose body was built in Italy. There was so little time to before LeMans, that Shelby couldn't spare the first car for them to copy, so the Italians kind of winged it. To make a long story short, the problem area was the roof. This body actually has a flatter, more pleasant looking roofline, but the car was 11 MPH slower on long straights! Needless to say, the remaining 4 coupes were built to match the original!!!!!

Back in 1964 Carol Shelby was tearing up the tracks in the US with his Cobra roadsters. Nothing had a chance. But on the European tracks with longer straights it was a different story. The roadster aerodynamics limited its top speed and the Ferrari’s would clean their clocks. In 1965 Shelby was intent on winning against Ferrari. Because Ferrari was allowed to enter a special version of their road car it opened the door for Carol Shelby to do the same. Fortunately he had Pete Brock on his payroll and Pete had studied aerodynamic texts that the Germans had put together from years of research. Pete also had a great eye for form and with the help of the Shelby crew they designed the Cobra Coupe. It was fantastic and the chassis number of the first one was CSX2287. Six were made in all.

The design was so perfect it allowed Shelby to win against Ferrari, but Ford was intent on LeMans and wanted Shelby to devote his shop to the GT40. This left CSX2287 to get cleaned up and used on the public relations Cobra Caravan. It even spent some time on the Bonneville Salt Flats with Craig Breedlove and Bobby Tatroe setting 23 international and national speed records.

Since Ford wanted Shelby to concentrate on the GT40, Carol put the coupes up for sale. The most he could get for any of them was about $4000 without engines and transmissoins. CSX2287 was sold to Jim Russellof Russkit slot cars who converted it to street use (sort of) and sold it to none other than Phil Spector. Phil accumulated a lot of speeding tickets and also found the race car did not convert that well to the street, often becoming unbearably hot. Phil took it to a shop to see about further converting it to street use, but the mechanic told him it would cost tons of money and offered to scrap it for him for $800.

Now here is where the story gets a little screwy. Some say that Phil sold it to his body guard for $1000 in 1971. The body guard, George Brand, then gave it to his daughter, Donna O’Hara, who stashed the car and wouldn’t tell anyone where it was or even admit that she had it.

Donna got divorced in 1982 and she retained control of the car. In the last couple of years Robert Lavoie, an attorney representing Kurt Goss a childhood friend of donna’s, tried several times to buy it for half a million dollars, but she refused.

On October 22, 2000, Donna went under a bridge Fulerton, CA, with her rabbits and a couple of bottles of gasoline. She poured the gasoline on herself and lit it off. It took her 15 hours to die and she wouldn’t even tell the police who she was. She just told them to “Shut up”. It took over a month for her to be identified when friends reported her disappearance.

Goss claimed that she called him five days prior and told him that if anything happened to her he was to take care of her personal belongings. Goss said that she wanted him to have the coupe along with three other cars of hers. When he heard that Donna had died he contacted her mother and paid the outstanding storage charges expecting to remove the coupe. The owner of the storage center would not let Goss remove it without legal authority and Donna had no will.

Meanwhile Martin Eyears, a rare car dealer from Montecito, tried to close a deal with Donna’s mother to buy it for $3,000,000. Donna’s father suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and can’t help with the questions over ownership. So Martin decides to sell it to a collector on the east coast for $4,000,000.

Then Phil Spector comes out and says he still owns the car. Phil claims that he neither sold nor gave the car away, and that he asked Brand to put it into storage for him.

December 8, 2001, the legal battle ends. Kurt Goss has been determined to be the legal owner and Dorthy Brand is to pay him more than $800,000, since she sold the car. After estate and gift taxes Dorthy will end up with nothing according to her lawyer, Milford Dahl. I suspect the lawyer will pocket enough to put a couple of payments on that beach condo he owns in Malibu.

A Philadelphia collector owns the $4-million vehicle.
Racing buffs and others want it.
A court will settle whether it was legally sold.

About the only fact the friends and relatives of Donna O'Hara can agree
upon is that she's dead. And that a dented blue Cobra Daytona Coupe race car
the Sears employee had hidden away for nearly three decades is worth a lot
more than it looks. Somewhere around $4 million, in fact.

But that's where the agreements end. And the squabbling begins.
In the five months since O'Hara, 56, burned herself to death on a
Fullerton horse trail, her friends and relatives have become embroiled in a
lawsuit over rival claims to the rare 1964 race car once owned by reclusive
music producer Phil Spector.

The dispute includes allegations of a stolen document and lies told, of
duplicity and a secret sale in February that sent the car to a private
collection in Philadelphia--a distressing development for a nationwide
circle of car buffs and high-end collectors, enthralled by the discovery of
a machine long believed lost.

"The car's been missing for 30 years," said Lynn Park, a Cobra
collector from La Canada, who once tried to find the car, known to
collectors as the CSX2287. "A lot of people have tried and it was still
missing. When it surfaced, it was quite something."

The story of the missing Cobra, and of the legal fight that has erupted
in the wake of O'Hara's suicide, has more twists and turns than a Grand Prix
race course, its arcane details hard to follow and at times hard to believe.

"I am going to challenge all of you and ask if you are not making this
up," Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray told an array of
lawyers who filed into his courtroom March 6 for a hearing on an injunction
over the sale of the car. "This smells from many standpoints."

Few of those involved in the case will talk, leaving the debate to
their lawyers, who along with court records tell a tale that alternates
between misguided naivete and willful skulduggery.

And it all begins, innocently enough, with Carroll Shelby, a
larger-than-life Texan now living in Bel Air, who built the CSX2287 as the
first of six racing coupes that won him a world racing title in 1965.

Shelby himself once tried to buy the car back from O'Hara, but had no
better luck than any of the others in persuading her to part with it, let
alone admit she had it.

"It's a very strange, strange thing," said Shelby, known as much for
his brashness as for his cars. "That woman was kooky."

Shelby, a race-car driver in the '50s, began building his Cobras in
1962 through his Shelby American company in Los Angeles. But the original
cigar-shaped coupes didn't have the speed to beat Enzo Ferrari's Italian
speedsters on the international racing circuit.

In 1964, Peter Brock, a Shelby designer, tinkered with the original
Cobra design to make it more aerodynamic, closing the roof and dropping the
rounded back in favor of a camm, or concave, design, among otheralterations.

The new version, the CSX2287, was built at Shelby's shop near Los
Angeles International Airport and ran 20 mph faster than its
predecessor--enough of a gain to challenge the fastest cars of the day.

Over the next two racing seasons, the CSX2287 and five subsequent
Daytona Coupes won their class in a series of races, including the grueling
12 hours of the Sebring race in Florida. And they brought Shelby American
the FIA World Championship--the first American team to win it.

Shelby retired the cars after the 1965 season, and after the CSX2287
set two dozen speed records at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats. Shelby hoped
the cars' fame would make them valuable to race buffs, and in December 1965,
he sold the CSX2287 for $4,500 to Jim Russell, founder of the Russkits
company, which made toy slot-racing cars.

"They sat around for a couple of years," Shelby recalled. "We took
engines and wheels and transmissions out of them, and they were just laying
around. Finally, people started buying them. Some of them went for less than
$4,000."

Russell kept the CSX2287 about a year before selling it to Spector. The
sale price is unknown, but Russell had advertised the car for $12,500, said
Ned Scudder, historian for the Shelby American Automobile Club, a group of
aficionados.

The car was trouble for those who expected to run it on the streets of
Los Angeles. Built for high-speed sprints, the cab became uncomfortably warm
as the car engine heated up, among other problems.

Still, Spector drove it on the streets. Scudder said the legend is that
Spector racked up so many speeding tickets, his lawyer advised him to get
rid of the car before he lost his license.

Park, the collector, said Spector simply grew disenchanted with the
CSX2287, which at the time was little more than a novelty.

"It overheats and does all these things wrong," Park said. "So he took
it to a shop to get it fixed and they told him it was going to cost an
outrageous amount of money to fix and they offered to scrap it for 800
bucks."

Attempts to reach Spector for comment were unsuccessful. But lawyers
involved in the case said that Spector's bodyguard, George Brand, offered
the music producer $1,000 for the car. It's unclear how or when Brand passed
the car on, but his daughter--Donna O'Hara--wound up with it in the early
'70s.

Brand now suffers from Alzheimer's disease and is in an Orange County
nursing home, said Milford W. Dahl Jr., a family lawyer. Dorothy Brand of
San Diego, the bodyguard's ex-wife, wouldn't discuss the car or its history.

According to court papers, O'Hara let a childhood friend, Kurt Goss,
drive the car occasionally in the early '70s, but then took it off the road
and put it in storage, where it fell out of public view.

O'Hara was divorced in 1982 and her ex-husband declined comment this
week on why she hid the car away. But its elusiveness added to the car's
mystique for collectors. The story of the "lost Cobra" became legend,
spawning streams of rumors about its fate. The car had been destroyed.

Shelby, himself, had it hidden somewhere.
One of the rumors turned out to be the truth: that the car was sitting
unrestored in a Southern California storage facility.

"The other (five) coupes had been accounted for," said Park, the
collector. "This one car, it could never be confirmed where it was. A lady
[O'Hara] owned it but she would never confirm its existence. You would go
and talk to her and she'd say she's not interested in talking."

In recent years, at least two collectors approached O'Hara.
"She was offered about a half-million," said Robert Lavoie, a lawyer
representing Goss, the childhood friend. "I don't know why she wouldn't
sell. She told some people she was just going to hold onto it and someday it
will be her retirement."

Exactly who had the right to sell the car lies at the heart of the
legal dispute. Goss alleges that on Oct. 17, O'Hara called and asked to meet
at her La Habra apartment. She then told him that she wanted to give him the
car and three other, less valuable vehicles.

"Donna also indicated that in the unlikely event that anything should
happen to her, she wanted me to look after her personal effects," Goss said
in a court statement. He also said O'Hara filled out a state Department of
Motor Vehicles form transferring the cars to him, but never filed it.

Yet O'Hara's cousin, Charles Jones, said in court documents that the
DMV form was found by relatives after the death, that the space for listing
the recipient of the cars was blank, and that Goss took the form without
permission.

The exact details are sketchy, as are the reasons, but in the dawn
hours of Oct. 22, O'Hara huddled in a recessed area beneath a bridge over a
Fullerton horse trail, doused herself from a bottle of gasoline, lit a match
and descended into agony for the 15 hours or so it took her to die.

Contentious to the end, her first words to a Fullerton police officer
who rushed to help her were, "Shut up." She wouldn't tell police or hospital
officials her name, and it was more than a month before O'Hara's body was
identified. That came only after friends finally reported her missing to La
Habra police.

Goss said in his court statement that after he learned of O'Hara's
death, he met with some of O'Hara's relatives, including her mother, Dorothy
Brand. A few days later, he paid the back rent for the Anaheim storage
garage where O'Hara had kept the car. But Goss said the manager of the
facility told him he could not remove the car without documents proving
ownership.

Meanwhile, Martin Eyears, a Montecito rare-car dealer, contacted
O'Hara's boss, hoping to get in touch with O'Hara to revive an earlier offer
he had made for the car, according to Eyears' lawyer, Paul Rafferty.

The boss told Eyears that O'Hara had died and agreed to pass along that
he was interested in the car to O'Hara's mother. Brand called Eyears and on
Dec. 16 they struck a deal for $3 million, according to court records.
Eyears said that Brand assured him she and her ex-husband were O'Hara's sole
heirs and that she had the right to sell him the car.

Attorney Dahl said this week that since O'Hara died without a will, her
parents, as her closest relatives, are the heirs. Among the legal issues to
be decided is whether Brand should have submitted O'Hara's estate to
probate--in which the court appoints an overseer for disposing of
assets--before the car was sold.

Dahl simultaneously argues that probate was not required in this case,
despite the value of the car, and that Brand sold the car out of naivete.

"I think she's a very unsophisticated and naive lady, who doesn't have
a lot of money" and is unaccustomed to the intricacies of probate and
courts, Dahl said.

After striking her deal with Eyears, Brand went on vacation. When she
returned, she obtained power of attorney for her ex-husband, filing papers
in a San Diego court on Jan. 30, Dahl said. A week later, Eyears paid Brand
$3 million and took the car. Eyears, in turn, agreed to sell the car to
Steve Volk, president of the nonprofit Shelby American Collection museum in
Boulder, Colo., for $3.75 million, then backed out of the deal a few days
later, Volk said in court records.

"We have been tracking this particular Cobra coupe for 15 years and
were actively bidding on the car when Dorothy surprised all parties with a
secret sale," Volk, who is out of the country, said in an e-mail. "We are
still a buyer for the car and are hoping that the sale will be reversed and
that the vehicle will be sold to the highest bidder. We . . . are seeking
this particular car because of its original condition. We believe it has
significant historical value and should be displayed, as is, to the public."

Eyears eventually sold the car to an East Coast collector for an
undisclosed amount. Lawyers identified the new owner as Dr. Frederick
Simeone, a Philadelphia neurosurgeon. Simeone did not return telephone calls
seeking comment.

Goss, meanwhile, said he learned the car had slipped away when another
potential buyer told him a rumor was floating among collectors that the car
had been taken out of storage and was for sale.

And now $1 million of the money is gone too. Brand gave $150,000 to
three charities and the rest to family members, Dahl said.

On March 6, Gray ordered the remaining $2 million placed in a special
interest-bearing account until the convoluted ownership issue can be worked
out. A hearing is set for April 17.

A bizarre legal battle over a long-lost, $4-million race car took yet
another strange twist Tuesday when a lawyer for Phil Spector contended that
the pop music legend still owns the rare 1964 Cobra Daytona Coupe.

"Mr. Spector is the owner of the Cobra," Peter C. Sheridan, an attorney
for Spector, said Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court. "He never gave it
or sold it to anyone."

Sheridan later declined further comment, referring questions to Spector
attorney Robert Shapiro. Shapiro said in a telephone interview that he
planned to file court papers arguing that Spector believed the car had been
stored on his behalf nearly 30 years ago and was unaware it had been sold.

Spector's claim came during what was to have been a routine court
appearance in a civil lawsuit over the sale of the car. The key issue is who
owned the car following the suicide last year of Donna O'Hara, who had kept
the legendary Cobra in storage for nearly 30 years.

Longtime family friend Kurt Goss of Anaheim said O'Hara, who lived in La
Habra, gave him the car a few days before she burned herself to death Oct. 22
on a Fullerton horse trail.

But O'Hara's mother, Dorothy Brand of San Diego, argued that there is no
proof O'Hara gave the car to Goss. O'Hara died without a will, and Brand
argued that as her daughter's closest living relative, the car is hers.

So Brand sold it for $3 million in January to a Montecito rare-car
dealer, who resold it days later to a Philadelphia collector for an estimated
$4 million.

The Cobra, known as the CSX2287, was built in 1964 by racing legend
Carroll Shelby and set land speed records.

Those involved in the case said O'Hara's father, George Brand, was
Spector's former bodyguard and that he bought the car for $1,000 around 1970,
when the reclusive music producer planned to scrap it rather than pay for
repairs.

Shapiro said Brand actually was Spector's house manager. He said Spector
"neither sold nor gave" the car to Brand, but turned it over to Brand to
place in storage.

Asked how someone could not realize one of his cars was missing for
nearly three decades, Shapiro said the CSX2287 was an investment.

"Isn't that the definition of an heirloom?" Shapiro said. "This isn't a
man who gets in his car every morning and checks his oil and pressure and
drives it to work. He is the most prolific producer in the history of music
and he's extremely focused on his work. He delegates most of these things to
other people."

Shapiro said Spector hoped to have the court order either the car or the
proceeds of its sale--about $4 million--be turned over to him.

December 8, 2001 ORANGE COUNTY
Legal Triangle Over Legend's Race Car Ends
Courts: Carroll Shelby's rare, blue Cobra Daytona Coupe was at the center of
a dispute involving a collector, a mother and a childhood friend.

A classic Cobra race car has a home, and the man who claimed to be the legal
owner has more than $800,000 under a legal settlement reached Friday.

The agreement, finalized in a Santa Ana courtroom, resolved a long-standing
feud over a blue Cobra Daytona Coupe race car--one of six racing coupes
manufactured by former world racing champ Carroll Shelby.

For more than three decades, the rare race car--which had set land speed
records--gathered dust in a storage unit, its value quietly growing to more
than $3 million. Last year, the car's owner, Donna O'Hara, committed suicide
on a Fullerton horse trail.

O'Hara's mother sold the car for $3 million. It was later purchased by car
collector Frederick Simeone, a Philadelphia neurosurgeon.

That's when O'Hara's childhood friend, Kurt Goss, stepped forward and
announced that O'Hara had promised him the car. And the legal battle for the
race car was on.

Superior Court Judge James P. Gray approved a legal settlement Friday in
which O'Hara's mother, Dorothy Brand, will pay more than $800,000 to Goss.

After estate taxes and gifts she has already made to charities and family,
Brand will end up with virtually nothing, said her lawyer, Milford Dahl.

Built in 1964, it was sold in 1965, but the initial buyer soon sold the car
to Spector, who claimed he turned it over to O'Hara's father, George Brand,
to place in storage.

Postscript: According to an article in the February 4th issue of Autoweek,
now that the ownership of CSX2287 is officially resolved, rumor has it that
the coupe is to be restored and put on display at the Shelby American
Collection in Boulder, Colorado. This would be a fitting final chapter to an
amazing story of a S-A icon. (Ed: Personally, I think it should not be "restored",
but rather cleaned up and shown as is. A car is only original once in it's life, and
this one should retain the patina it has collected over the past 30 years. We can
always see a restored Daytona Coupe....to see one in virtually original condition
would be priceless)