Carroll Shelby’s own ultimate Cobra is heading to auction

Any Shelby Cobra that has slightly more connection to the great man than usual generally fetches a fair amount at auction. Heck, the original CSX 2000 – the first one Shelby ever built in 1962 and owned until his death in 2012 – sold for $13.75m in 2016. That car’s ‘big brother’ CSX 3178 then sold for $5.94m in January this year.

The Cobra you see above has also changed hands for millions of dollars on two occasions in the past 15 years. Back in 2007 it crossed the block at a Barrett Jackson auction with Shelby himself in attendance. It sold for $5.5m then, and $5.1m when the same auction house sold it again in January 2015. 

Why? Well, this is Shelby’s own 1966 427 Super Snake – one of two ever built and the only one remaining after the other (a former PR car) was eventually sold and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. This car – CSX 3015 – started life as a 427 Cobra Competition race car, but in 1967 Shelby had it made road-legal and transformed into a Semi-Competition car.

At the time, Shelby’s engineers did a little more than refit the windscreen, though. The 7.0-litre V8 received twin-superchargers for around 800bhp (in the 1960s!). A three-speed automatic gearbox was also fitted to deal with the torque, and a year later Road & Track christened it ‘the Cobra to end all Cobras’.

It’s now up for sale again and will cross the block at Barrett Jackson’s Scottsdale auction next month. So, how much do we think it’ll go for folks? And how much will we have to beg the new owner to let us have a go?

Images: Barrett Jackson