Cobra 427 History

Carroll Shelby dreamed of a special kind of sports car. He was a racing driver who took his dream forward. Having retired from racing, he persuaded British sports car specialist AC Cars to build his car, and US industry giant the Ford Motor Co. to fund it. Its name also came to him in a dream – Cobra.

As Bristol engines were no longer available for British manufacturer AC’s Ace, Shelby spotted an opportunity to fulfil his dream. He would fly the chassis to his works in the US and complete it using a Ford engine.

The Cobra was conceived as a road car – the 289, and the vast majority were sold as road cars, but it was the racing element that underpinned everything else.

The Cobra 289 was a hugely successful racing car. By mid-1963, against strong opposition, 289 Cobras had won everything worth winning in US racing and were virtually unbeatable in SCCA and USRRC Production racing. However, Shelby harboured a burning desire to beat Ferrari on the big stage, in the Sports Car Manufacturers Championship.

Despite their success on small US tracks, the European-style tracks presented a bigger challenge. The Cobra roadster simply wasn’t fast enough in a straight line to beat Ferrari.

Ken Miles, racing driver and engineer who worked with Shelby, had his eye on Ford’s 427 NASCAR engine as the ‘Ferrari-beating’ solution. However, the power and torque of this monstrous engine were more than the 289 chassis could handle. Ford’s engineering department assisted Shelby in redeveloping the Cobra platform to accommodate the V8, and the new, coil-spring chassis was built by AC in Thames Ditton.

The 427 looked essentially like the 289: the doors, boot and bonnet were the same, but it was longer, wider and had noticeably flared fenders to accommodate larger wheels and tyres. The nose was re-profiled to include a bigger main grille opening, and there was a separate scoop below the grille for the oil-cooler on Competition cars.

Shelby commissioned the first 100 427s as Competition cars to qualify for FIA acceptance into the 1965 GT category. When FIA inspectors arrived at Shelby’s premises to inspect the cars, only 51 of the requisite 100 had been completed. Homologation was denied.

Production of 427s continued as road cars.

Of the 51 Competition cars completed for the 1965 GT championships, 16 were sold to private owners to campaign in SCCA production racing. Shelby kept back enough of the remaining cars for the 1966 season ‘GT Production’ class.

By mid-1965 Shelby had a yard of around forty unsold 427 Cobras which could not be sold or raced.

Charles Beidler, Shelby’s Eastern Sales Manager, came up with a solution: to complete the rest of the Competition cars to a slightly milder specification and advertise them as the fastest production cars in the world – retaining the oil cooler, riveted hood scoop, flared fenders, side exhausts, dual lightweight batteries, 42-gallon fuel tank, and external fuel filler of full-Competition models. Windshields were fitted and the engines were detuned. They were still insanely, brutally quick, faster than many full-bore racing cars of the period, and can rightfully be considered the ultimate ‘street’ Cobra.

Thus was born the ‘Semi-Competition’ 427 Cobra. Twenty-nine of the original batch were sold as 427 S/Cs.