The Shelby Daytona Coupe is a historic vehicle, being the first American constructor to win a title on the international scene at the FIA World Sportscar Championship in 1965, beating out Ferrari, and 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of this triumphant victory.
The Beginnings of the Daytona Coupe
The first Daytona Cobra Coupe, model CSX 2287 was completed and tested at the Riverside Highway on February 1, 1964, according to former GM stylist Peter Brock, and after a successful run, Carroll Shelby decided to build 5 more. His famous rivalry with Enzo Ferrari had gone through great lengths, and it seemed that with this car, it would be settled once and for all.
The design for the Daytona was thought to be too controversial to those in the Shelby Organization, most employees thought the first coupe would be found to be a failure. This attitude naturally changed once the car was tested by Ken Miles, who broke the lap record at the Riverside Highway by 3.5 seconds.
The secret behind the Daytona’s genius lay with prototyping and research made by German aeroscientists Wunibald Kamm and Reinhold Koenig von Fachsenfeld during the 1930s, though their work was not widely known in the United States. Most of the data was lost during the war or otherwise destroyed, but what remains is the Daytona’s basic concept: using a roofline with the most minimal downward curve at the back of the car combined with a heavily shortened tail. This was against all trends in automobile engineering, given the fact that a teardrop design was the tradition for race cars, and the concept was initially rejected by most in the industry.
The Daytona Cobra Coupe proved to be the right choice, and Italian carmakers soon started picking up the trend just as more Daytona’s went into manufacture, and this year celebrates that very innovation and the start of a new trend.
The Experience of Driving a Daytona Cobra Coupe Today
Journalist and avid driver Peter Valdes-Dapena writes about his experiences driving the Shelby American’s 50th Anniversary Daytona Coupe, and according to him, it’s like sitting in a time capsule.
This Daytona initially cost about $230,000 in its fiberglass body version, and with aluminum body, the price goes up $100,000. Fast-forward to today and one of the six cars that spurred from the original Shelby Daytona Coupe, and you might have to shell out around $25 million. These cars were, after all, built to race throughout Europe and America, so its only natural that the price tag matches the purpose.
The 50th Anniversary edition of the Daytona, according to Valdes-Dapena, isn’t designed to be an echo of the racecar. This edition, for which an exclusive 50 cars were made, is more fit for the occasional drive by collectors, and brings a nice throwback to 1965. It doesn’t drive like contemporary cars do, runs like a classic memento right under your fingertips. A big aluminum V8 engine is ordered separately from the car, so customers get several options in regards to engines, and it rumbles as if it, too, was still celebrating its predecessor’s glory days.
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