What made Carroll Shelby’s sports cars so powerful and iconic? Besides being born with an innate sense of tuning and speed, Shelby was one of the first to successfully blend a light British chassis and body with a big American V8. This led to the creation the famous Cobra and Cobra Daytona Coupe, the latter of which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its FIA World Sports Car Championship this year.
While Shelby is a distinctively American icon, it owes much to our friends across the pond, and it feels just right that this weekend’s Goodwood Revival will star the 50th anniversary Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe continuation series. There will even be a recreation of the press conference that before Shelby’s championship victory introducing the soon-to-be-legendary Daytona Coupe.
The real draw of this year’s Shelby-centric Goodwood Revival is that all six original Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupes will be on hand, for the first and possibly only time in history.
“There are only six original Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupes built in the world, making them worth millions of dollars each today,” said Joe Conway, Co-CEO of Carroll Shelby International and CEO of Shelby American. “The demand was so strong for these unique cars that we are making 50 continuation versions that are available in aluminum and fiberglass. The Goodwood Revival stage will allow us to put those cars, as well as the modern-day Shelby’s into proper context for our global fans.”
In addition to the celebration around the cars themselves and the recreation press conference, Shelby Daytona drivers Peter Brock, Allen Grant, and Jack Sears will be on hand to sign autographs. Prices for the Daytona Coupe continuations start at $179,995 for the fiberglass model, and $349,995 for the all-aluminum version. For the expected 150,000 spectators, it’s the closesest most of them will ever get to one of these rare and highly-valued collectible race cars.