CS2131 History?

[LMH]

"moss confussion"? I met Moss and he's not confused at all! Nice guy too!

Ron, I took your advice and bought an older registry. (don't have it yet though) It may tell me how many original tops there were.
Larry

[Cobra Pack]

Nedsel,

The saac records need to be updated. The miller family purchased the original hardtop back from the owner of csx2203 at least 3 years ago and it is on csx2138 again for the first time since 1963. Csx2203 has a new hardtop on it. I have pictures of the hardtop when murray stripped it and the original black paint was still underneath. He also constructed a buck and made a second top for csx2155 which is currently being restored.

Thanks

Mike

[Nedsel]

Mike, thanks for the update. I knew Larry was trying to buy Ernie's top long before he passed away. However, Ernie hasn't given us an update, so we didn't confirm the details. The point of my note to Larry was to let him know Ernie's car wasn't one of the cars that originally came with the La Mans style hard top.

[LMH]

Maybe I misunderstood him. Not sure.
His car does have the larger side vents I noticed like 2131 and 2142.
Larry

[Nedsel]

The larger vents were added. 2203 was a street car originally.

[VRM]

Hey! That's my photo! The rest are here:
CS2131 Replica album | Steve DeVaux | Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.

This replica was stunning in a weird cartoonish sort of way. I shot it at Goodwood - it was in the spectator parking for vintage cars. There were probably 1000-1500 cars, and this one could be seen from quite a ways away because of the limey glow.

I usually have no interest in replicas, but this one seemed very well done with the exception of the colour and graphics.

Steve

[LMH]

Yeah, it's nice looking. I would rather see it with Dunlop alloys but it still nice either way.
Larry

[GWL]

Here is a link to the Willment Daytona Coupe now at the Shelby American Museum

Shelby American Museum

This text is found at the above link with pictures
In 1964 The John Willment Team of Chertsey England purchased CSX2131 as a spare chassis. Willment realized the aerodynamic advantage of the Pete Brock designed Daytona coupe campaigned by Shelby American. He decided to construct his own version based on drawings supplied by Shelby American with the help of John Ohlsen from Shelby American and completed by Frank Gardener of the Willment team.

Upon completion it was entered in many European and South African races.


This is one of four pictures found there

[Historybuff]

A few years ago I read that the famous German GP ace Schumacher bought a Cobra replica bodied in France on a real Cobra chassis. I found a story on it in Italian but the story doesn't mention the chassis number (even if I translated it into English ...) I don't know why Schu bought a replica when at the time he was making over $50 million a year but maybe he's like Leno, he wanted a replica so he wouldn't have to worry abou it (Leno bought his replica 427 Cobra from Mark Gerish of Wisconsin--I saw it being delivered).

Here's the story on the coupe
Schumacher si regala una Daytona

[What'saCobra?]

At one point in time, may still be so, a high quality French firm would only install an aly Daytona body on an original chassis. Saw two that were very nice indeed about 10 years ago or so at Versailles and the Oldtimer summer meeting at the Berg.

Might have to do with French copyright law, also. Seems to me they had an agreement with CS or the French TUV required an actual car as a basis. Remember, at least some of the time he lives in Monaco, which is part of French registration law.

Can't recall which was more important.

NOT CHEAP and very correct.

[nikbj68]

Oh dear. I`m very late to this party, but there are lots of photos of CS2131 in my gallery, many from the time of my Dad`s ownership.
The original colour is called Dualessence Mist Green. Willment used 'Ford Monaco Red'.
As Trevor said, the chassis issue cannot be proved, but 'them what was there' all seemed to recall that 39PH was repaired after the Nurburgring, not re-chassised. What definitely happened is that the rear wheel arches went from being slightly flared to FiA-style.
The Willment Coupé was never actually registered with the 39PH registration number, and was registered as 77 YPF & UPL 886F after being sold by Willment before being registered 39PE by then Owner, George Pitt.

As for the hardtops, we debated that HERE starting back in 2003!
It would appear that CS2131 & CSX2138(now) are the only 2 Cobras to certainly have their original hardtops.

[nikbj68]

Originally Posted by VRM

Hey! That's my photo!...I usually have no interest in replicas, but this one seemed very well done...Steve

How`s about a photo of the replica, and a replica of the replica?! It is indeed a very nice car.



Taken at Silverstone Classic 2010 on the 289 Register Club stand. Boy did my arm ache after 10 minutes holding the model for everyone to try to get a good shot of both cars!!!

[LMH]

Thanks for sharing that!

I've got a question you can probably answer. How were the original 10 slot Dunlop wheels attached to the car? Splined adapter on the wheel to fit the splined hub on the car or totally different hub made for the car?

The wheels currently on 2142 are "peg drive" rims with the pegs on the back side of the wheels and the drive hub has holes the pegs fit into. I don't know how it was done back in the day though.
Larry

[nikbj68]

Now that I couldn`t tell you!
I assumed (wrongly, it turns out) that the FiA wheels were splined, which is why they are rarely seen with lockwires on the spinners, so I now assume that the factory fitted pegdrive hubs to suit the Dunlop wheels, and the subsequent Halibrands were an easy fit.

[Historybuff]

I don't know how common it was in Cobras but in researching other
race cars I have come across cases where a team would be testing a car and have another complete car hidden in the trailer. If they smashed the car they were testing they would act like they were repairing it in their garage but actually roll out the identical car. Also I heard about the finessing the serial numbers as far as getting a car from country to country. If you had a plate for a car where the taxes were paid, it was sometimes easier to switch your car to those plates than to have to pay duties on bringing a car in where the fees hadn't been paid. I heard one guy--Hans Tanner--was infamous for driving a Ferrari through a tunnel under the alps and then stopping half way at an emergency stop to switch the id. plates on a car just for that reason.

Of course it confuses racing fans decades later when they start to ask questions like "How come these numbers are so similar?" or "how come there's two cars with this chassis number?"

I had my own registration issue when I bought a Mercedes 300SL in Toronto from a guy who had bought two of them when they were new. He gave me the wrong title. When i got to the Detroit border with Canada, they asked for the car's papers and noticed the registration didn't match the car but then thought "ah, it's close enough" and let me through without confiscating the car. (which I later sold for $2500==back then my policy was "buy low, sell low")

[hurricaneharold]

Originally Posted by nikbj68

Oh dear. I`m very late to this party, but there are lots of photos of CS2131 in my gallery, many from the time of my Dad`s ownership.
The original colour is called Dualessence Mist Green. Willment used 'Ford Monaco Red'.
As Trevor said, the chassis issue cannot be proved, but 'them what was there' all seemed to recall that 39PH was repaired after the Nurburgring, not re-chassised. What definitely happened is that the rear wheel arches went from being slightly flared to FiA-style.
The Willment Coupé was never actually registered with the 39PH registration number, and was registered as 77 YPF & UPL 886F after being sold by Willment before being registered 39PE by then Owner, George Pitt.

As for the hardtops, we debated that HERE starting back in 2003!
It would appear that CS2131 & CSX2138(now) are the only 2 Cobras to certainly have their original hardtops.

Is that right Nik, I do believe the owner of another Cobra believes he has the original hardtop from CS(X)2131 fitted to his car .

[nikbj68]

Originally Posted by hurricaneharold

Is that right Nik, I do believe the owner of another Cobra believes he has the original hardtop from CS(X)2131 fitted to his car .

Yes, that is right. Known and confirmed history from now back to Willment.
First hand, 100% take it to the bank. The other owner may have been told it was that hardtop, but whoever told them that was wrong.

[hurricaneharold]

Originally Posted by hurricaneharold

Is that right Nik, I do believe the owner of another Cobra believes he has the original hardtop from CS(X)2131 fitted to his car .

And the other one is fitted to CSX2203, I wonder were the "other" CS{X}2131 hard top came from ? Apparently fitted to another ex Willment Cobra.

[LMH]

I've noticed (depending on the photo) that Dualessence Mist Green is similar to Aston Martin's Racing green, used on it's current race cars.
What do you guys think?
Larry

[nikbj68]

Originally Posted by hurricaneharold

And the other one is fitted to CSX2203, I wonder were the "other" CS{X}2131 hard top came from ? Apparently fitted to another ex Willment Cobra.

If you go back a page on this thread, you will see that the 'original' hardtop from 2203 was returned to 2138.
All this is covered in the Hardtop thread, the only doubt is where the top from 2142 went, or did it stay with 2142.
There is no evidence to prove there were more than 3 made by AC, and from reading all the information here, plus personal, first-hand knowledge, this is what we know:
CS2131. 100% Definitely it`s original hardtop.
CSX2138. Very likely it`s original hardtop, recovered from CSX2203.
CSX2142. Could be it`s original hardtop, confirmation needed.