by There are many great cars out there changing hands on a regular basis, but few seem to be as coveted as Shelby cars. For buyers willing to pay big bucks, it doesn’t exactly matter what kind of Shelby it is, as long as it has a connection to the great engineer and his company, and is in working order.
Take this 1965 Cobra, now on the list of cars that will go under the Mecum hammer in Monterey later in August. It’s a car that was billed to Shelby in 1964, was owned by another engineer, Jim Inglese, and is expected to fetch at least $900,000 (hopefully $1 million) during the event.
That’s right, one million dollars for a “highly desirable late-production, leaf-spring/rack and pinion small block Cobra.”The car packs, of course, one of the range’s original engines, the 289ci (4.7-liter) in this case, only no longer linked to the rest of the original hardware as, for instance, the transmission is a Tremec 5-speed installed sometime during the car’s life.
The engine ended being as Shelby envisioned it in 1977, when Inglese slapped on top of it a Weber carburetor system he modified himself. It’s said this system formed the basis for the products made by Inglese Induction Systems.
With the changed carb, the car was driven to the win in the 1978 Northeast Fall Rally in Massachusetts, and has not stopped racing since. Its last such adventure, we’re told, took place “recently” in the Copperstate 1000 Rally.
Sporting a black exterior over a black interior, the car goes complete with the original 4-speed, an original Cobra top, tool pouch and jack, and the original Cobra owner’s manual and Shelby sales brochure.
We’ll come back on this story as soon as we learn is the expected sum was reached during the auction – it seems there is a reserve for this one, although we are not being told what that is.
