[Dan Case]

Case Materials: Main Case and Tail Shaft Housing
The mystery time frame for production Cobra case materials was roughly between when “iron cases” for CSX2115 (completed as a car June 1963) and “aluminum cases” CSX2136-2138 (completed as SAI team race cars about August 1963). CSX2126 would NOT be in the discussion because it was finished before CSX2080 (It was a running car about the beginning of February 1963.).

Gears
The type of gear set installed in new transmissions was not permanently marked on them. Production iron cased units in standard Fords came from Borg-Warner with small metal tags affixed by a tail shaft housing bolt. The information on the metal tags identifies the assembly. I have been told that the aluminum cased transmissions sent to Shelby’s works were only marked with temporary paper tags to identify the individual transmission assemblies, i.e. engineering version or gear set.
I don’t know if the iron cased models in the earliest Cobras used were tagged or not, never seen one in person nor a detailed set of factory pictures. The very earliest Cobras were loaded with parts, especially in the engine bay, that most Cobras were never to use again. AC Cars considered CSX2001 the first production car and the first shipments of chassis to America to both coasts were of chassis very much like CSX2001. Once past the chassis line at AC cars there was a divergence of final assembly details because multiple shops finished the cars to the same concept but with different hardware. While not an exhausting accounting: Dean Moon’s shop and employees were used until Shelby took over an existing race car shop including CSX2000 in its first ‘American’ outfitting, various Carroll Shelby owned companies, Ford Motor Company to which it is believed chassis CSX2008 was sent, AC Cars Ltd including CSX2025, CS 2030, CS 2130, CS 2131, CSX2142, and CSX2186, Ed Hugus' company European Cars of Pittsburg PA many early cars in 1962 into early 1963 including the first production car CSX2001, RRR Motors of Homewood IL completed CSX2082 maybe, and Holman-Moody obtained CSX2009 to finish and use as a race car.

? sets = standard Ford of some type probably with cast iron cases. We do not know if the prototype Cobra received a prototype or preproduction transmission assembly in England and or America. Almost anything could have been possible as for example CSX2000 received the first Experimental High Performance 260 (XHP-260-1) prototype racing engine Ford engineers built when it got its second engine after arriving in California from England. CSX2000 was originally tested by AC Cars with a Fairlane 221 2V engine. AC Cars, Ken Rudd, and Ford had been cooperating on Rudd’s ACE RS2.6 cars long before Mr. Shelby showed up at AC Cars. The ACE RS2.6 cars used Ford Zephyr 2.6 liter inline six cylinder engines (RS2.6 = Rudd Speed 2.6 liter engine) and Borg-Warner manual transmissions. We have no idea what version of Borg-Warner transmission was installed in CSX2000 behind its Fairlane 221 engine. Legend says FoMoCo shipped an engine to AC cars for CSX2000. I don’t recall any mention of a transmission being shipped for prototype work. One could speculate that the “original” Cobra transmission was the same model an ACE RS2.6 used. In America CSX2000 and the other very early Cobras except one were fitted with XHP-260 engines got some type of Borg-Warner iron cased manual transmission. CSX2006 was fitted with a Fairlane 260 2V engine, at this time we don’t know the model year of that engine or if it was a prototype or production engine. At this time we have no idea what specific model the transmissions were or even if they were the Ford 23 tooth spline input like a 1962 Ford would have used or the new Ford ten tooth spline design that was coming for the 1963 model year. It was not uncommon for engineering lead times to be fourteen to eighteen months. Said another way, many parts and assemblies that would become standard production ones were first made in prototype or preproduction sample forms as much as eighteen months before the first production car it was planned for was assembled. XHP-260 engine parts were being made by April 1961. Ford was working towards offering a HP260 engine option package for the 1963 model year Falcon, which failed to materialize. Cobras ended up using some of the HP260 engines that were manufactured. It is real easy to imagine transmissions planned for production release in the summer of 1962 for 1963 model year Fords being available in preproduction form by the time CSX2000 was flown to California in February 1962, perhaps even as early as mid 1961 when AC Cars was developing CSX2000.

B sets = standard Ford style iron cased Galaxie transmissions and believed to have been used in early Cobras in the CSX20xx range (we don’t know exactly when the XHP-260 was replaced with the HP260) through early CSX21xx cars used cast iron case transmissions. Cars covered by that range were powered with HP260 and early 1963 model year, think December 1962 through maybe all of February 1963, HP289s.

From the 1962 (dated 11/30/62) Cobra FIA registration there was a standard and alternative gear set listed. The standard was the Ford B set from 1962.
Standard Alternative (alternate transmission part number XCO-270)
2.36 2.20
1.78 1.48
1.41 1.18
1.00 1.00

From the 1963 (dated 09/20/63) Cobra FIA registration the only the B gear set is listed:
2.36
1.78
1.41
1.00

From the 1964 (dated 02/06/64 Cobra FIA registration):
Standard Alternate w/2.20 1st Alternate w/2.33 1st
2.36 2.20 2.33
1.75 1.63 1.61
1.40 1.31 1.20
1.00 1.00 (no number listed)