Carroll Shelby is 81 years old. He's won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as a driver and as a team entrant. He's built sports cars in partnership with all three domestic automobile manufacturers. He's had more than a hand's worth of wives and nearly as many organ transplants. He's worked the oil fields of Texas, lived in Africa, and raised chickens. He's made many great business deals during his amazing life-along with a few bad ones. And he's patented one helluva chili recipe. Whether you revere or revile him, there's no getting around the fact that in the automotive universe, Carroll Shelby is an intergalactic icon.
So why, at a point in life when many octogenarians are content just to maintain a pulse, would he want to get involved in another sports-car project? Simple. It draws its inspiration from, and wears the same name as, the one nearest and dearest to his (transplanted) heart: Cobra. Shelby summarizes things succinctly: "This is it. This is my last hurrah. I'm going to end my car-building days where I started 'em-with Ford."
In February 1962, at the Santa Fe Springs, California, shop of hot-rodder Dean Moon, a small-block Ford V-8 was carefully lowered into the gaping engine bay of an AC Ace roadster. So it's only appropriate that this nouveau Cobra concept also hails from So Cal; in this case, Ford Design California (FDC) in Valencia, about an hour and a half northwest of where Moon's garage stood.
Shelby is the first to tell you he didn't design or build the new Cobra. "I've often been credited with things I didn't do," he says in a self-deprecating tone. "This one was done by J Mays, Chris Theodore, and a lot of other people at Ford." The task of recreating this legendary sports car fell to FDC chief Richard Hutting. He and his team managed much of the design and construction of last year's Mustang concept coupe and convertible. The popular Forty-Nine was another recent FDC hit.
"Discussions about doing a Cobra began in February 2003," notes Hutting, who personally served as the project's chief designer. "We first put pencil to paper in early March. Ford management bought into the idea hook, line, and sinker, and Shelby got involved in it right away." The car was finished just a few weeks prior to its Detroit auto show debut.
Take one look: There's no way it could be anything but a Cobra. The requisite Cobra cues are present and accounted for: the oval mouth, hood scoop, broad-shouldered rear fenders, bumper shapes that resemble the early car's overriders, fat rolling stock, etc. But to call it "retro" would be a mistake. Put the two Cobras side by side, and the shapes, proportions, and details are vitally different-connected, to be sure, yet separated by 40-some years of evolution.
Its internal code name? "Daisy." And why not? The Ford GT's was "Petunia."
As you can tell from these photographs, it's a full runner. "It's no bubble-gum and paperclip design study," says Mays. The FDC gang's joined-at-the-hip partners in this project were Ford Advanced Powertrain and Chris Theodore's Advance Product Creation Group; APC manager Manfred Rumpel's team oversaw the majority of the engineering. Structurally and philosophically, the Cobra also owes a big thank you to the GT. "All the suspension, several of the frame members, and the rear-mounted six-speed transaxle come right out of the GT parts bin," comments Scott Strong, director of advanced design for North America. "We even used a couple of production-spec GT bucket seats and cut them down to work in this roadster." The Cobra is more prototype than turntable toy, as it's already undergone fluid dynamics analysis, simulated wind tunnel testing, and the engineering documentation even contains wheel-alignment specs.