A Shelby Cobra Super Snake CSX. One just like the one that scared the pants off of Bill Cosby.

In 1967, Bill Cosby was on top of the world. He was a TV star on “I Spy” and had a wildly successful comedy career going full tilt. If things weren’t going well enough, his buddy Carroll Shelby built him a Cobra Super Snake CSX, which is a modified Cobra Competition roadster with twin superchargers and, of all things, a C6 automatic transmission!

When Shelby’s guy dropped off the car it didn’t take Cosby long to find out that it was more car than he could handle. After only one drive in it he returned it back to Shelby, and then probably changed his underwear.

Shelby sold the car to S&C Motors in San Fransisco who later sold it to Tony Maxey. Unfortunately Maxey was critically injured, and later died, after driving the Cobra off of a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean.

Cosby’s 1968 comedy album “200 MPH” tells the tale of his brief ownership with the Cobra, and the audio is hilarious. He describes the Cobra as having twin superchargers, twin everything, pipes everywhere, and that he was thrilled to have a car that could do 200 mph. Why the need for speed? No real reason; he just needed a quick ride to work and wanted to impress all the kids in “them Chevy’s.” At the end of his wild ride in the Shelby he asked that it be returned, and given to George Wallace. We’ll leave it to you to do your homework on that reference!

The album “200 MPH” was released on vinyl in 1968 and later released on CD in 2005. The first video below is pulled directly from the album, while the second is one that Cosby did impromptu during a visit on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno over 30 years after his 1968 album. See which one you like better!