History: Building The Daytona Cobra Coupes In Modena
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As soon as the first Daytona Cobra Coupe, CSX 2287, was completed and tested successfully at Riverside Raceway on 1 February 1964, Carroll Shelby decided to build 5 more. He felt he had a score to settle with Enzo Ferrari and finally had the weapon to do it.
The Daytona’s radical design had been so controversial within the Shelby Organization that most of those employed there figured Mr. Shelby’s plan to race in Europe against Ferrari would evaporate as soon as the 1st Coupe was tested and found to be a failure.
That resistant attitude changed dramatically as soon as test driver Ken Miles called from Riverside trackside to inform Mr. Shelby that he shattered the track’s lap record by 3.5 secs.
Brock on the Goodwood grid with five of the six Daytona Cobra Coupes. Jonathan Sharp photo.
The Daytona Coupe’s controversial form was based on pioneering studies and complete running prototypes completed by German aero scientists Wunibald Kamm and Reinhold Koenig von Fachsenfeld in the late 1930’s.
Their work was unknown in America and most of their data had been lost or destroyed during the war.
Only my chance discovery in Y 1957, while working for GM styling, of some of their notes, found in the GM Tech Center library, intrigued me enough to save and use their ideas 6 years later when the opportunity arose to design a new GT Coupe for Carroll Shelby.
The concept of using a roofline with minimum downward curvature at the rear combined with a severely truncated tail went against the accepted “common knowledge” that a tapering “teardrop” shape was ideally suited to racing cars.
Later, others in Italy had discovered the advantages of keeping boundary air flow attached to a car’s body but only the Zagato-bodied Alfa Romeo TZ1 from Y 1964 had really followed the formula correctly at the same time I was designing the Daytona.
Hardly anyone in America had seen anything like these forms so the concept was almost universally rejected at that time.
For the chassis history of the 6 Daytona Coupes go here: http://www.velocetoday.com/chassis-history-of-the-six-daytona-coupes-by-pete-brock/
By Peter Brock
Paul Ebeling, Editor
HeffX-LTN
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