[What'saCobra?]

The aluminium cars were and are NOT fragile. Just like they are not hard to drive. But, rally cars require particular preparation and driving Cobras (of all the various sorts) require seat time and practice. They are not underpowered enough to allow any numbskull to drive them at the limit, like most benign motorcars.

Side pipes on a rally car would be the dumbest thing going, since the risk of rock/roadside damage would be so unnecessarily high with such obvious and dopey exposure for the sake of a few max horsepower, usually not the issue with either a Cobra or a rally car. Max usable torque is the drivability issue on any road course, rallies included.

Before anyone bludgeons me with the Targa Florio story, consider that that was indeed a sort of rally course on typical narrow and rough Italian tarmack.

The car was set up as a full race version, with hard Konis, stiff springs, anti-roll bars and the full closed course road-racing kit. Completely insipid for the Targa.

Cars set up for the Targa are set soft, more forgiving, easy shock rebound and are usually set up by people particularly experienced with the targa's unique stress factors on the bits. Like rally cars, they are frequently set up at higher road height clearance. Road race cars are set up special too, like getting your car to run right (or rather left) on the Daytona banking with proper stagger in the tire pressures, but not enough to spoil the infield drive.

Add these set up failures and the low level of practice the Shelby team had at the Targa before (none, zip, nada, zero) and you shouldn't be too surprised it broke a part or two or three. They had no real chance due to their unforgivably low Targa experience. Look at the pictures and notice the remarkably high Ferrari and Porche ride height and roll angles. Plus, it is a very long way around and there was little practice. The Ferrari guys were there for weeks before, driving their hot street cars and learning the lines. Shelby's guys were outwitted and out-prepped. No chance.

It is true that the early Cobras broke a lot of stuff that required upgrading from the less stressed ACE Bristol standards and still do, if not crack tested. (Someday I am going to write about that here, also.)

Look, the Alan Mann team didn't win the World Manufacturer's Championship of Makes with the 289 Daytona with a fragile piece of kit, did they? Do you remember how rough the Seibring course was? Man, that was bad and the Cobras finished and won.

The completion record of Cobras is quite normal for any new and highly stressed race car. If you want a dangerous example of incompetent initial setup and design engineering, look at the record of failures of the 917 before two years of millions of dollars of testing and driver complaints. That thing was undrivable out of the box and for a long time, before it ran well and finished. Look it up in Brian R edman's book.

I would point out that all the McLarens (another English designed and fabricated car...although to sharpen the point further, the first McLaren was really an adaptation of Roger Penske's Zerex special, which was a Formula 1 Cooper (English again!) that was turned into a winning center seat 2.7 Liter Coventry Climax engine (English again!) Sports Racer Special by Roy Gane in Pennsylvania for Roger), won their races right from the start and very rarely DNF'd (did not finish). Every year they were so good everybody wanted to buy even last year's car to have at least a chance to compete or sit in the stands and watch a driver demo. It turned into a driver demo anyway, because the new car each year was 2 to 4 seconds a lap faster when driven by the ace drivers of Papa Bear Hulme and Juicy Brucey McLaren. (Take a look at Friedman's book on McLaren.)

The Cobra, while not perfect from the start, became completely unbeatable very quickly. The Cobra was a locked in winner for the American SCCA in both Ap and Bp until Shelby quit in 1967 and sat on his fat hands while the 'vettes got continuous factory help in fixing their Wolley Mammoth with more power and better brakes. Eventually, in 1972 the last 427 Cobra barely won the National Championship for Ap and an era passed. I still blame the beneign neglect of a certain vainglorious Texan for dropping the winning ball in play.

The Targa result, like the very hasty untested entry of the first 427 at Nassau, was an aberration of the record.

The cars ran like a german train schedule and arrived at the finish line on time and in the proper sequence...first.

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Aside:
A old pal of mine once asked me what the most dangerous aircraft in the world was and I guessed perhaps the X series of Edwards AFB test aircraft or the GB Specials from the air race days, but he said the J-1 Cub or something really tiny like that I forget exactly which).

I was a bit waffled and asked why.

He said it was dangerous because it had too much power!

I told him I absolutely didn't believe that it had too much power at such a low 35 or 45 or whatever hp. How could that be so, I asked with serious doubt in my friends now at risk credibility.

He pointed out that if it had about 1 less horsepower, it wouldn't have flown at all and that would have made it even more safe by sitting on the ground.

Fortunately, no Cobra of my memory ever had that problem!