It Gave the GTO the Blues
1965 Shelby Cobra 'Daytona', built specifically to beat the All Conquering Ferrari GTO. Remember, it was the open Cobra that was built to wrench the GT world championship from Enzo.
Having developed the AC Cobra/Shelby Cobra into a successful GT race car, he realized that the weakness of the open-cockpit sports cars at Le Mans was the aerodynamic drag which limited top speed on the 3.7 miles (6.0 km) long Mulsanne Straight to around 157 miles per hour (253 km/h), nearly 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) less than the Ferrari 250 GTO, which itself could hold speeds of circa 186 miles per hour (299 km/h). Given the length of this straight, this speed differential represented a loss of over 10 seconds per lap which could negate any power and acceleration advantage that the Cobra had in the slower sections.
Shelby asked employee Pete Brock to design the Daytona's aerodynamic bodywork.
After sketching the proposed design on the floor of the Shelby America workshop, starting with the roadster chassis crashed at the 1963 Le Mans race, Brock removed the bodywork and placed a seat and steering wheel in alignment of where he felt that they should be. He then placed driver Ken Miles in the car, and using scrap wood and gaffer tape, designed the windscreen - the first component to be manufactured for the car. He then interspaced wooden formers and, using these as a guide, hand-made the aluminum bodywork for chassis #CSX2287 around them.
Shelby conferred with an aerodynamics consultant from Convair who said that the design needed to be extended on the tail by at least 3 feet (0.91 m), but Brock stood by his design, whose tail featured the angled cut proposed by The German design wizard, Wunibald Kamm, whose design markedly reduced air turbulence in high speed race car's derrieres. Miles took the car to the Riverside Raceway, and on the 1 mile (1.6 km) main straight, took the car on his first five laps to 186 miles per hour (299 km/h), admittedly after it had been found to have "almost flown, lightening the steering a great deal" at speeds above 160 miles per hour (260 km/h). It took another 30 days of development before Miles signed off the car, clocked at that point capable of speeds over 190 miles per hour (310 km/h). CSX2287 was transported to Daytona Speedway for its debut race in the February 16, 1964 Daytona Continental 2000 km. Driver Dave MacDonald earned the pole position with a time of 2:08.200 and average speed of 106.464 MPH.'
The Daytona Coupe won every thing in sight, including the World GT championship. This is the 5th of 6 total coupes, and was driven by a number of talented racers, including the incomparable Phill Hill. Now if I had Pat Durkin's skills, I could alter the background into interesting line drawings, but alas........
COMMENTS & INVITATIONS with AWARD BANNERS will be respectfully DELETED!
It Gave the GTO the Blues
1965 Shelby Cobra 'Daytona', built specifically to beat the All Conquering Ferrari GTO. Remember, it was the open Cobra that was built to wrench the GT world championship from Enzo.
Having developed the AC Cobra/Shelby Cobra into a successful GT race car, he realized that the weakness of the open-cockpit sports cars at Le Mans was the aerodynamic drag which limited top speed on the 3.7 miles (6.0 km) long Mulsanne Straight to around 157 miles per hour (253 km/h), nearly 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) less than the Ferrari 250 GTO, which itself could hold speeds of circa 186 miles per hour (299 km/h). Given the length of this straight, this speed differential represented a loss of over 10 seconds per lap which could negate any power and acceleration advantage that the Cobra had in the slower sections.
Shelby asked employee Pete Brock to design the Daytona's aerodynamic bodywork.
After sketching the proposed design on the floor of the Shelby America workshop, starting with the roadster chassis crashed at the 1963 Le Mans race, Brock removed the bodywork and placed a seat and steering wheel in alignment of where he felt that they should be. He then placed driver Ken Miles in the car, and using scrap wood and gaffer tape, designed the windscreen - the first component to be manufactured for the car. He then interspaced wooden formers and, using these as a guide, hand-made the aluminum bodywork for chassis #CSX2287 around them.
Shelby conferred with an aerodynamics consultant from Convair who said that the design needed to be extended on the tail by at least 3 feet (0.91 m), but Brock stood by his design, whose tail featured the angled cut proposed by The German design wizard, Wunibald Kamm, whose design markedly reduced air turbulence in high speed race car's derrieres. Miles took the car to the Riverside Raceway, and on the 1 mile (1.6 km) main straight, took the car on his first five laps to 186 miles per hour (299 km/h), admittedly after it had been found to have "almost flown, lightening the steering a great deal" at speeds above 160 miles per hour (260 km/h). It took another 30 days of development before Miles signed off the car, clocked at that point capable of speeds over 190 miles per hour (310 km/h). CSX2287 was transported to Daytona Speedway for its debut race in the February 16, 1964 Daytona Continental 2000 km. Driver Dave MacDonald earned the pole position with a time of 2:08.200 and average speed of 106.464 MPH.'
The Daytona Coupe won every thing in sight, including the World GT championship. This is the 5th of 6 total coupes, and was driven by a number of talented racers, including the incomparable Phill Hill. Now if I had Pat Durkin's skills, I could alter the background into interesting line drawings, but alas........
COMMENTS & INVITATIONS with AWARD BANNERS will be respectfully DELETED!