This Month in Cobra History - June
LeMans - 1964
1964 was the first year Team Shelby seriously competed on the European circuits. They did so with their new Coupe design, the answer to the limiting aerodynamics of the roadster....helped by a "loophole" in the FIA regulations that would recognize any body configuration as the
same car, as long as the guts of the car matched the model that was originally certified.
CSX2287 was an FIA-spec chassis that was used for the first Coupe, with the body panels banged out at Cal Metal Shaping in California. This car would be driven by Chris Amon and Jochen Neerpasch, running as #6.
A second chassis, CSX2299, was shipped to Carrozeria Gran Sport in Modena, Italy... along with the specs, patterns and engineering drawings for the Coupe body.
Well, the boys in Modena read the prints wrong, and ended up making a Coupe that was 2 inches higher than the drawings called for! This turned out to be a blessing, because Dan Gurney couldn't fit in a regular Coupe with his helmet on... so this car became his for the rest of the campaign.... with Dan as the number one driver, backed up by Bob Bondurant, running as #5.
A third Coupe, built at AC cars from their own interpretation of the design, was entered in LeMans 1964, but it did not compete as a Shelby car and was driven by Sears and Bolton, running as #3.
The Coupes were classed with four Ferrari GTOs and outran them all... right from the beginning of the race, consistently clocking 180mph on the Mulsanne straight.
In the sixth hour, the AC Coupe crashed tragically. At that time, CSX2287 was running third overall, with CSX2299 second in class and fourth overall.
In the eighth hour, 2287 came into the pits for a driver change and they found themselves with a dead battery. A quick jump from a spare battery got them started... and got them disqualified! Evidently... you can't do that in an endurance race. That left CSX2299 as the only hope.
They ran steady all night, but just after dawn, they lost
oil pressure. Shut down the engine and coasted to the pits... an
oil cooler line had ruptured. What do you do? ...bypass the cooler and get back on the circuit, still placed number one in GT class and fourth overall.
Note the trick access panel in the hood, allowing them to get to the dipstick, without raising the hood.
In the twenty-third hour, the engine began sputtering and missing at speed...back to the pits to find one broken set of points. What do you do? ..throw out one set of points from the dual-point distributor, get it running and ... get back out on the circuit.
Even in this state, CSX2299 got the checkered flag as
First Place in GT class and Fourth overall.
A team photo from LeMans 1964-
(l-r...Bob Bondurant, Chris Amon, Jochen Neerpasch, Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby)
...some things never change: drivers look "happy-go-lucky"... owner looks pensive and REAL-ly anxious.
(race description paraphrased from "Shelby's Racing Cobras")
One of the last Cars ever to do that.
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