[computerworks]

Originally Posted by Cal Metal

I think the "dream" centered around the logo, which was already in existence, if memory serves.

here's the first-hand explanation:

When the first car arrived in Santa Fe Springs, although it bore the designation CSX0001 (Carrol Shelby Experimental) we already had the name for it. While the machine was on its way from England a stange thing happened.

One night I had a dream in which I saw the name "Cobra" on the front of the new car. I woke up and jotted the name down on a pad which I kept by my bedside - sort of an idea pad - and went back to sleep. Next morning, when I looked at the name "Cobra," I knew it was right. This had to be it. But when I decided to call my car the Cobra, we ran into an unexpected problem while getting the paperwork ready to apply for a copyright.

It suddenly turned up that years before that Crosley had built an engine which they called a "Cobra," though for very different reasons. The little Crosley overhead-camshaft mill had been COppere BRAzed - get the idea? Fortunately, however, it had passed through nine different companies with the engine, rights, and patents, etc., changing hands each time, and not one of those nine successive firms had ever used the name, "Cobra."
It therefore turned out that the name Cobra no longer could be considered as a valid trade name insofar as Crosley was concerned, and we were able to copyright it.

-from The Carrol Shelby Story, November 1965