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One of the First Shelby Cobras Ever Built Slithers Out of Hiding
From 1962-67, Shelby American screwed together fewer than 1000 Cobras. They’re all desirable, but a few have a particularly special history. One of them—CSX 2003—is among the very earliest Cobras ever built, and we now know that it will be up for grabs in a few weeks at Broad Arrow’s Monterey auction. And although this is a real-deal Cobra, it wasn’t screwed together at Shelby American. A Pennsylvania car dealer built it.
For the first batch of Cobras built during 1962 and 1963, the general flow of things went like this: AC in England would ship a painted and trimmed car—sans engine and gearbox—to Shelby in Los Angeles, where the Ford bits went in (specifically a 260-cubic-inch V-8 and BorgWarner four-speed). Final assembly was completed there, in California. But for the earliest run of cars, built just following the excitement brought on by the Cobra prototype (CSX 2000), Carroll Shelby hadn’t yet set up his full operation.
Fortunately, racer and early Shelby backer Ed Hugus stepped up to assemble the first handful of production Cobras, including CSX 2001 and CSX 2003 (2002 was a race car), at his Pittsburgh dealership called “European Cars.” In doing so, he became the first Cobra dealer, as well as the car’s official distributor for the East Coast.
But CSX 2003 is more than one of the very first Cobras. Broad Arrow’s research has found that, before Ford had reached a formal manufacturing or racing agreement with Shelby, the car went to Dearborn for evaluation and road tests by company engineers. Even Henry Ford II sampled it. The car then sold to George Reed of the RRR (Reed’s Racing Rats) race team in Illinois. During his ownership, Reed displayed it at the 1963 12 Hours of Sebring while his other Cobra was taking part in the race. It then reportedly sat in storage from 1969-79, received some work to get it back on the road in 1980, and passed through a handful of owners before passing to the current owner, who has owned the car since way back in 1989.
The consignor had already bought a 289 Cobra the year before, in 1988, but that car’s previous owner had a case of seller’s remorse and wanted the car back. He agreed, but “only if you find me another Cobra, and if I approve we can swap.” He accepted CSX 2003 in trade and has kept it ever since, maintaining its impressive level of preservation (and picking up one of the ubiquitous Carroll Shelby signatures on the glovebox along the way). The consignor, Broad Arrow says, even daily drove the car for a while.
Regardless of condition or configuration, any genuine Cobra is a seriously valuable car. Generally, the 260-powered ones are the least valuable in the quiver, but in our price guide, the #2 (“excellent”) value is still $926,000, and the #1 (“concours”) value $1.1M. Given CSX 2003’s early build date, test history with Ford, and impressive level of originality, though, it could sell for even more when it crosses the block in Monterey this August. Broad Arrow’s presale estimate for it is $1.5M-$2M, which would make it among the most expensive small-block Cobras ever sold.
It’s a proven fact that this very Cobra, was the first Cobra to race in the USA. The place…Connelsville Airport, a 22.5 mile race on the airport road course. It was hot and sunny, more than 13,000 attended.and the date was Sunday, August 26, 1962.
Before shipping the car to Shelby in LA, Ed Hugus (an avid, accomplished racer himself, and Shelby’s authorized East Coast representative) decided to run against the Corvettes of Don Yenko and Dr. Dick Thompson (among others). It was a non-championship SCCA event, and Corvette took all three places at the podium..Dick Thompson ,Don Yenko, and Bob Mouat.
The Cobra?
It was retired due to overheating on the 12th lap…
Great story – but it always makes me shake my head when I read”…it’s a proven fact..” and then hear nothing about the proof.
I still have the original ignition and trunk keys, and fob for CSX2012 that my father owned/raced in the ’80s
A very pretty car which will sell for a high amount. I like the red interior / white exterior.
Agree 100%. When one says “Shelby Cobra”, it’s easy to think only of those thundering 427 beasts with the bulging fenders, fat tires, chrome side pipes and racing stripes, but when I stop to look at a pretty little roadster like this one, I am reminded what a lovely car AC had originally built and what probably made Carroll fall for them back in the ’60s.
Herbie Hancock has one of these, chassis # CSX2006 I believe. also white car he brought new!….Hidden away somewhere…Retirement fund!
Back when I worked at Roush we restomodded Cobra 0007 into a show car for a customer. Original color was similar to this one but the customer wanted it painted candy purple. It was displayed at Autorama in Detroit before being delivered to the customer.
In 1967 my ’60 fuel injection Corvette caught fire on I-75 in Kentucky while doing 80 mph. Total loss. It had just rolled 32,000 miles. AAA gave me $1275 for it! So I was looking for another, but a Sting Ray. I looked in the Detroit News for one for sale. Found a ’66 for $3500. Also saw in that same column a ’65 Cobra for $3500!
I never called about the Cobra or went to see it. Beautiful car, is there a top on them? Plain dash. Corvettes had nicer interiors. The guy who was selling the Corvette described it on the phone. 12 coats of Cadillac bronze metal flake paint. 327 dual quads, shaved heads, dyno’d at 380 hp. Four speed, two tops, customed padded hardtop. Michilin tires, factory side pipes. I couldn’t wait to see it! Paid $3500 cash and drove it home! Everybody thought it was the most beautiul Corvette they had ever seen. I sold it for $3000 about 18 months later. Tired of shifting gears, not enough room for other people. Bought a new ’69 SS396 turboautomatic. $3150. Later could have kicked myself for not getting air in it.
This is an article about a Cobra/ Cobras .Were all glad you had you cute corvette .Bottom line you blew it corvettes are like mice they are everywhere and don’t even come close to the provenance of owning a Cobra .Saying that we are all so happy that you bought a corvette painted in a metal flake color as that fits the image of a corvette and the owners .Thanks for sharing.
My point was the Cobra was only $3500! Who appointed you editor???
Based on only one comment, I think the rest of us “GOT IT!”
This car, along with CSX2001, had double badges added by Hugus! On the nose was the AC medallion, plus the Shelby AC Cobra winged badge. On the trunk, (boot,) was the AC script emblem and the winged badge! There are a lot of photos of CSX2001 both here and in the UK racing with the unusual hard top similar to the Ferrari’s, just type in Bredvan Cobra. Hugus saved Carroll’s rear twice, in the beginning when Shelby had no money, and a second time when Carroll called Ed and said, “Ford is going to take the Cobra program away from me!” Ed told him not to worry, he would take care of it. We don’t know what was said in the Ford telephone call, what we do know is a copal of weeks latter, an accountant from Ford showed up in LA, and proceeded to get the books at least close to in the black!