The year was 1963 and American cars were by and large massive metal V-8-powered machines. Even America's only sports car up until that time, the Corvette, was big and heavy. Produced with a thick fiberglass body, it also had a heavy steel X-member chassis. The Ford Motor Company was the only U.S. automobile manufacturer that was just beginning to offer a viable sports car alternative to the Corvette. Right in the local Ford dealership's showroom window, the '63 Shelby Cobra 289 roadster captured Mike Bell's 16-year-old attention. He'd just come from passing his first driver's test at the DMV. At this precise moment, with his first license in hand, he vowed to one day own a Cobra.
The trouble was, as the years passed, these used sports cars climbed in value instead of becoming more affordable. Most other old cars lost value, but not the Cobra.
Sure, the fact that Carroll Shelby and his Shelby American racing team beat Ferrari in the SCCA Manufacturer's Championship in 1965 had much to do with Cobras becoming more valuable. But, they were surefire world-beaters from that day in 1962, when Shelby and friend Dean Moon dropped a 260ci small-block Ford V-8 and a BorgWarner four-speed manual trans in the first Cobra ever built: the CSX2000. It only took Moon and Shelby eight hours to turn the underpowered AC Ace aluminum-bodied roadster into a Corvette-killing machine. In fact, that evening Shelby and Moon took their first testdrive in the roadster with the intent of catching some unaware Corvette pilots and beating them in a few stop sign acceleration runs and maybe some street racing. Fortunately for the Corvette owners, and perhaps Shelby's driving record, none were found.
Getting back to the now-not-so-young Mike Bell, he had become a professional machinist and a mechanical engineer-and he had earned his pilot's license in the 1970s. While Shelby Cobras remained out of reach financially for Mike, he began building a kit airplane in his garage. This new hobby seemed a perfect melding of his interests and abilities.
The ensuing years passed, and Mike and his wife had twins, a girl and a boy. His son, Addam, became engrossed in planes, helping his dad build a second kit airplane and earning his pilot's license as a teen.
Kit airplanes and flying as a hobby does burn some free time, but Mike was approaching retirement, and the memory of that 289 Cobra in the Ford dealership window as a teenager had seared itself into Mike's memory bank. Somewhere in the '90s, he'd subscribed to a little magazine called KIT CAR. Many of the replicar hobbyists were starting to build Cobras, so Mike reasoned that if he and his son had the acumen to build safe airplanes that could fly more than 130 mph, they could probably tackle creating a Cobra in their garage. The father/son team decided to research and purchase a Cobra kit car in 2000 on their annual pilgrimage to the world's largest fly-in, held in, of all places, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This fly-in attracts more than one million participants, spectators, and some 10,000 airplanes.
On the road trip from their home in Sandy, Utah, to Oshkosh, the Bells visited every Cobra replica manufacturer along the way. During their visit at Shell Valley, in Platte Center, Nebraska, they were most impressed with Rich Anderson's candor and friendly good nature. They decided then and there to acquire a Shell Valley Cobra 427 SC kit.