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A Visit to the Shelby American Collection


scannon

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The Rocky Mountain Handcrafted Automobile Club (RMHA) hosted a visit to the collection located in Boulder, CO this morning.

 

As I was pulling into the parking lot I saw a truck and trailer pulled up in front of the building. There was a definitely non-Cobra car about to be loaded into it. The car was a 1955 Ferrari 410 S Carrera PanAmerica race car. This car was raced by Shelby and Phil Hill with great success. It is one of four built with the 5.0 V-12 engine. Later versions had I6 engines. The car was being sent to Amelia Island for the concours.

 

It was cold and snowing lightly with some snow on the ground and the car idled and sounded like a big V-8 with the lumpy idle of big cams. It was having trouble getting traction to get up the ramp and no one was pushing on the lovely but fragile aluminum body.

 

The collection has 15 mostly significant race and street Cobras and one AC Ace (predecessor to the Cobra with a Bristol I6 engine).

 

There are three 350 GT Mustangs including the first one built and found in Mexico a number of years ago. It is awaiting restoration.

 

One Ford GT40 Mk IV J-7 which competed in the 1967 LeMans but DNF'd. J-6 won and J-5 placed 4th.

 

One Lola CanAm car used by Shelby to test engines for the GT-40s although it now has a Chevy 350 engine.

 

There was a Ford Falcon sedan delivery owned by Pete Brock who used it as a tow vehicle, part chaser and daily driver. It has a full up 289 Cobra engine in it.

 

The building also contains many of the molds, parts and memorabilia from the Cobra and GT-40 racing years.

Edited by scannon
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Skip,

 

That Ferrari is a BEAST -- and priceless! Almost the largest-displacement front-engined competition Ferrari ever built.

 

Does the Shelby Collection own it? If it does, I suppose it is because of the Carroll Shelby connection.....?

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The cars in the collection are mostly owned by the people who got together and started the museum. A few belong to their friends. The Ferrari is owned by one of those who started the museum.

 

The red Daytona started as a regular Cobra and was modified in England to drawings supplied by Shelby. The black one is an original open Cobra with a rare removable hardtop.

Edited by scannon
Ammended info on black Cobra
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