Road and                                                 Track                                                                    December 1979                                                                                                  Salon 1964 FIA Cobra Roadster Unsophisticated, but tough and very fast.  By Tony Hogg

MIKE SHOEN OF Phoenix, Arizona is the ultimate Cobra enthusiast. Not only does he have some half-dozen of these cars, but among them is the original FIA 289 Cobra team car raced by Phil Hill at the Tarp Florio in 1964. Mike was kind enough to produce this car at Laguna Seca Raceway for us and so we reciprocated by producing Phil Hill and also Dan Gurney, who drove the sister car, so that the two - drivers could reacquaint themselves with this famous machine.

Mike's enthusiasm is such that when he says he has Phil's original car, what he really means is that it is absolutely original down to the last nut and bolt. He even has the original tires, although the rears are too worn to use other than for display purposes. Of course, the car is in as-raced condition, complete with dents and dings, and the firing order is still chalked on the underside of the hood where some mechanic wrote it many years ago. At first sight, we were somewhat disappointed by the car's condition, but that lasted only until we fully realized the car's historical significance, which is good reason for leaving it exactly as it is. With a momentary feeling of nostalgia, I remembered that I last saw it run in 1964.

On the appointed day of the "reunion." we all met at Laguna Seca. Phil and Dan arrived in Phil's Blower Bentley, and the pair of them looked like a couple of retired race drivers who had lost their way to Brooklands. The car was still on the trailer because it was the original trailer, and Mike Shoen wanted to impress us with the authenticity of the whole rig. After being duly impressed, we helped unload the car and Mike gave the keys to Dan, who climbed in.
Mike Shoen pointed out to us that the car still had what was originally known as the "Dan Gurney FIA windshield." When the car was raced, the FIA regulations were very strict in regard to the dimensions of the car. For instance, the car's trunk lid is bulged to accept the regulation HA suitcase and the windshield was required to he a certain height. Dan and the other drivers were never happy with the windshield and wanted it lower, so a modification was made so it could be inspected in the regulation position. but after the race started the wind blew it down to a position where Dan was comfortable with it.

Dan turned the key and hit the starter button. The engine burst into life with the loud blatting sound characteristic of a tuned V-8. After a minute or two for warming up, he took off up the track like he really meant business and we could hear him accelerating all the way up the hill. then shifting down for the corkscrew and accelerating down the hill before braking hard for the 90-degree turn leading back onto the pit straight. He certainly wasn't hanging around and after several more laps he came in, slammed on the brakes and jumped out with his face wreathed in smiles like he was in his second childhood. His first remark was that it felt like it was only a week ago, instead of 15 yeah, since he raced the Cobras.

Phil went out next, and he got straight on it too, not to be outdone by Dan. Being able to get Dan and Phil together was a stroke of great good fortune, because the two of them used to spend a lot of time in each other's company and they competed with one another both on and off the track. There are many hilarious stories of the tricks they played on each other.

When Phil came in, he also said the car was exactly as he
remembered it and he could recall vividly how it understeered but that this could easily be corrected with the throttle. He also recalled the considerable amount of brake pad knockoff. This refers to the way in which flexing of the suspension due to hard cornering or a rough surface caused the brake discs to knock the pads back so you had a low pedal when you applied the brakes. Although disconcerting, it was not serious and could be controlled by pressing the brake pedal with the left foot to bring the pads back into position before braking heavily.
To Dan. driving the car brought hack a host of happy memories. Driving the Cobras was one of the most exciting times in his life, and the main reason was that it involved a bunch of guys from Los Angeles taking on the cream of the European racing establishment with cars they had designed and built themselves, which was absolutely true.

The man behind it all was Texan Carroll Shelby. who had a long and successful career as a race driver behind him and had only quit because of a heart problem. Before his retirement. Shelby had tried to interest General Motors in a competition sports car, hut GM was interested only in Corvettes. so Shelby directed his immense charm and powers of persuasion in Ford's direction, with considerable success. What he actually did was to bring together Ford's engines (and Ford's money) with AC Cars Ltd in England, the builders of the AC Bristol.

In the best tradition of the British specialist car builder, AC Cars is nothing much more than a fabricating shop in the main street of a sleepy little English village called Thames Ditton. At the time, the Bristol Aeroplane Company had just stopped production of the engine used in the AC Bristol and Shelby felt that a small-block Ford V-8 would be ideal. He caused a modified but engineless AC to be flown to Los Angeles, where he and Dean Moon had it running within eight hours. The Cobra was born and Carroll Shelby was on his way.

The true ancestry of the Cobra goes hack as far as 1950, when a relatively unknown designer named John Tojeiro decided to offer a racing sports car chassis, which would accept almost any of the available competition engines of the time. Working by himself, Tojeiro built what was eventually to become the basic layout for the Cobra. One of his first customers was named Cliff Davis.

Davis ordered his car with a tuned version of the 6-cylinder Bristol engine. When it came time to body the car, Tojeiro was in a hurry and also somewhat lacking in resources, so he looked around to see what other people were doing. Showing excellent taste, he settled on the beautiful little barchetta body with which Carrozzeria Touring had clothed the Ferrari 166 Mille Miglia. and built a fair copy of it. although he simplified it along the way to suit the available amounts of time and resources. The TojeiroBristol became a famous and successful car and. thanks to Touring, it had an ageless appearance.

At the time, AC -Cars was having some bodies built by a company called Buckland Body Works Ltd, which was close to Tojeiro's shop, and Derek Hurlock. who is now the boss of AC, heard about Tojeiro while on a visit to Buckland. A deal was made and Tojeiro cooperated in adapting his design for road use and the car appeared as an AC, first with AC's own 6-cylinder engine and later with the Bristol.

Because it was built in a fabricating shop. the AC Cobra benefited enormously from its extreme simplicity. The chassis consisted of two 3.0-in. diameters steel tubes connected by crossmembers in ladder-style with spring towers at each end. Body framing and support brackets were welded to the main tubes and the bodies were of aluminum. Front and rear suspension was by transverse leaf springs and lower A-arms, and disc brakes were used all around. In the early stages of production, a number of modifications were made from time to time so that there was a certain amount of variation between the cars.

The first contract was for 100 cars, which were delivered between December 1962 and April 1963, and the first 75 of these were fitted with Ford's 260-cu-in. engine. However, Ford starting to build a 289-cu-in. engine which was absolutely ideal for Shelby's purpose. Ford had been doing extensive research into methods of thin wall casting, so the new engine was light. It had a rather extreme bore to stroke ratio of 4.00 in. to 2.87 in.,

which also helped to reduce the weight as well as keep down the piston speed and permit big valves to be used. and it was offered in a high-performance version giving 271 bhp. It was one of the best engines ever built.

The engine in Mike Shoen's car was, of course, tweaked by Shelby's men. but not excessively so. Shelby's sworn intention was to win with a team of Cobras the series of classic races which counted toward the international manufacturer's championship. a' to put it more succinctly in Carroll's words, "To git Ferrari's ass." These races included Le Mans, the Targa Florio. Sebring and other long-distance events, so stamina was just as important as speed. Fortunately, the engines were extremely rugged just as they came out of the box, so the stock crankshafts, rods and pistons were retained after being balanced.
The two engine men were Cecil Bowman and Jack Hoare and their primary job was very careful hand assembly to fine limits, and considerable attention to the gas flow through the heads. Four twin-choke, downdraft Webers were used and the diameter of both the intake and exhaust valves was increased by I /16 in. To take advantage of the larger valves, the ports were opened up and finally the complete combustion chambers were polished. Various compression ratios were used, but 11.6:1 was about normal. With these and other modifications, such as different valve overlap and ignition timing, the engine put out between 340 and 370 bhp. This output by no means stretched the engines anywhere near the limit, and Phil Hill recalls them as being very reliable as were the whole cars. Furthermore, according to Phil. the torque characteristics of the engines were such that you didn't have to bother very much where you were on the power curve.

When Phil Hill signed up to drive for Shelby. he had just left Ferrari where, although the boss wasn't too easy to get alone with, the cars were certainly very strong and reliable. Phil recalls that while he was driving for Ferrari he spent quite a lot of time watching the cars of the various opposing teams just breaking up around the drivers, and he was relieved when the Cobras proved to he strong and reliable too. An amusing incident occurred at Sebring at this time. Phil got into the lead at the start, and when he came around in the Cobra after the 1st lap, the Ferrari mechanics were all standing in front of the pits cheering and waving him on.

Although Carroll Shelby's main competition were the other international sports car teams, he was also competing to some extent for Ford's patronage with Holman & Moody, who were preparing cars for NASCAR events. It was a political situation, and Dan Gurney says he steered well clear of it because, in those days, he was trying to make a career for himself as a driver and didn't want to get involved in politics. Holman & Moody's cars were powered by Ford's 427 competition engine and it was natural Ford should want these engines in the Shelby program.
Presumably because he had learned fairly early on in life that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Carroll and his men did a fast shoehorn job with a 427 engine into a normal Cobra chassis. Ken Miles, who was one of Shelby's employees and a driver of considerable repute, did most of the work and it was Ken who, while practicing for Sebring in 1964, managed to stuff the 427 car into about the only tree growing in that part of Florida. The car was repaired for the race but it suffered a number of ailments before finally retiring on the back of the course.
However, the effort was not in vain because it was the predecessor of a series of some 350 427 Cobras, which were the fastest production sports cars ever built and were radically different under the skin, and considerably more sophisticated than what had gone before. The frame was bigger and stronger, being constructed of 4.0-in. tubes. Texas-size driveline components were used throughout. the suspension used coil springs and upper and lower A-arms front and rear and Halibrand magnesium wheels were standard equipment.
Some competition versions of the 427 were built and I asked Dan and Phil what they were like to drive. Both agreed that they much preferred the 289 cars because the 427 wouldn't really do anything the 289 couldn't do and some things it really didn't seem to do as well. However, they did mention that the 427 might have a slight advantage at a circuit such as Spa, which was tremendously fast with a very smooth surface. Of course, the difference between the street versions of the cars was much less subtle because the stock 289 engine put out an advertised 270 bhp and the 427 about 425 bhp, depending on whom you asked.

Shelby's operation in Venice, California attracted a lot of talented people from the southern California area and among them were Pete Brock and Phil Remington. Remington has been around race cars most of his life and he now works for Dan Gurney, who describes him as "a one-man army." It was probably because of the influence of these two that six competition coupes were built on the 289 HA chassis. The first coupe was built in Venice to. Pete Brock's design and today it is still one of the best looking and cleanest competition coupes ever built. It retained much of the mean look of the roadsters but the windshield was more steeply raked, blending into a long, sloping fastback ending in a chopped off Kammback tail. The cars were called Cobra Daytona Coupes, because the first car made its initial appearance at Daytona in 1964.
One day back in 1964, while they were testing at Riverside International Raceway, Ken Miles took me for a ride in the coupe. which was an interesting experience because not only did it give me an impression of what the coupe itself was like, but also it gave me a good impression of the handling characteristics of the competition Cobras in general, and altogether it was a fairly hairy.

Although Carroll Shelby's main competition were the other international sports car teams, he was also competing to some extent for Ford's patronage with Holman & Moody, who were preparing cars for NASCAR events. It was a political situation, and Dan Gurney says he steered well clear of it because, in those days, he was trying to make a career for himself as a driver and didn't want to get involved in politics. Holman & Moody's cars were powered by Ford's 427 competition engine and it was natural Ford should want these engines in the Shelby program.

Presumably because he had learned fairly early on in life that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Carroll and his men did a fast shoehorn job with a 427 engine into a normal Cobra chassis. Ken Miles, who was one of Shelby's employees and a driver of considerable repute, did most of the work and it was Ken who, while practicing for Sebring in 1964, managed to stuff the 427 car into about the only tree growing in that part of Florida. The car was repaired for the race but it suffered a number of ailments before finally retiring on the back of the course.

However, the effort was not in vain because it was the predecessor of a series of some 350 427 Cobras, which were the fastest production sports cars ever built and were radically different under the skin, and considerably more sophisticated than what had gone before. The frame was bigger and stronger, being constructed of 4.0-in. tubes. Texas-size driveline components were used throughout. the suspension used coil springs and upper and lower A-arms front and rear and Halibrand magnesium wheels were standard equipment.

Some competition versions of the 427 were built and I asked Dan and Phil what they were like to drive. Both agreed that they much preferred the 289 cars because the 427 wouldn't really do anything the 289 couldn't do and some things it really didn't seem to do as well. However, they did mention that the 427 might have a slight advantage at a circuit such as Spa, which was tremendously fast with a very smooth surface. Of course, the difference between the street versions of the cars was much less subtle because the stock 289 engine put out an advertised 270 bhp and the 427 about 425 bhp, depending on whom you asked.

Shelby's operation in Venice, California attracted a lot of talented people from the southern California area and among them were Pete Brock and Phil Remington. Remington has been around race cars most of his life and he now works for Dan Gurney, who describes him as "a one-man army." It was probably because of the influence of these two that six competition coupes were built on the 289 HA chassis. The first coupe was built in Venice to. Pete Brock's design and today it is still one of the best looking and cleanest competition coupes ever built. It retained much of the mean look of the roadsters but the windshield was more steeply raked, blending into a long, sloping fastback ending in a chopped off Kammback tail. The cars were called Cobra Daytona Coupes, because the first car made its initial appearance at Daytona in 1964.

One day back in 1964, while they were testing at Riverside International Raceway, Ken Miles took me for a ride in the coupe. which was an interesting experience because not only did it give me an impression of what the coupe itself was like, but also it gave me a good impression of the handling characteristics of the competition Cobras in general, and altogether it was a fairly hairy ride.

For a start, Ken was grinning from ear to ear throughout, because he thought he was scaring the hell out of me (which he was). Then, there was more noise inside the car than out, which meant it was absolutely deafening inside, and also very hot and rather oily. On the back straight we were probably hitting about 150 mph. but it was coming up through the esses that was disconcerting because Ken held the car in a series of classic 4-wheel drifts in which the car was pointing at 45 degrees to its general direction of travel. This, of course, was the classic method of getting a car which underwent considerable camber changes while cornering through a turn as quickly as possible. It wasn't a slow method of cornering, but it was different from what you see today and you had to be strong and courageous to do it..

As far as driving the Cobras in a long-distance race was concerned, Phil and Dan agreed that the cars were very effective but very tough to drive. Phil remembers them as being exceptionally stiffly sprung and much stiffer than the Ferraris he had been driving. On circuits such as the Targa Florio. Phil recalls the cars using up what suspension there was and bottoming all the time, so it was a question of hanging on rather than driving.

Dan's feelings were that you had to he fit to drive them and you had to roll up your sleeves and really go to work. Dan recalled a tense moment at one race during a pit stop. Jerry Grant was about to get in the car and Carroll Shelby was shouting at him to just get in and get going. So Grant did and took off without fastening his seatbelt. but the ride was so wild he was practicably being thrown out of the car and had to stop' and fasten the belt.

The records show that Mike Shoen's roadster was campaigned as a team car in 1964 at the Targa Florio, Spa and the Nürburgring. It also won the Freiberg Hillclimh and the Sierra Montana Hillclimb in Switzerland in the GT class driven by Bob Bondurant. In 1965, which was the year in which Shelby took the HA GT championship from Ferrari, it won the Tourist Trophy in the GT class and was 4th overall, driven by Sir John Whitmore. and was then used as a practice car at Spa and the Nürburgring. It finished the season by winning the GT class at the Rossfeld Mountain Hillclimb in Germany driven by Bondurant.

At the end of the season, the car was shipped back to California and sold. It remained in storage for nine years until 1974 when it was taken out, lubricated, tuned. washed and waxed and it has remained that way ever since.

One could describe the Cobras as being relatively unsophisticated, but tough and very fast and they were a source of embarrassment to people with much more sophisticated machinery. When Carroll Shelby set out to campaign his Cobras in the classic European road races, it was an exciting time for everyone and it proved that a bunch of guys from L.A., many of whom had gained their early experience in Hot Rodding, could take on the sophisticated European racing establishment and beat them at their own game.  Tony Hogg

                                                      

 

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