During the latter half of 1963, Carroll Shelby placed an order with AC Cars Ltd for four Cobras described as “race cars with wide rear wheel arches”. Commonly referred to as the ‘FIA’ model, these 4.7-litre roadsters acted as back-up to Shelby’s main GT title contender, the Daytona coupe, in his quest to get the better of Enzo Ferrari whose cars were dominating European sports car racing.
The roadsters main objective was to pick up extra championship points at the slower circuits and hillclimbs. The car in the photograph is one of the FIA cars, chassis CSX2260, which was shipped to Shelby American in mid-December 1963 and quickly built into a competition car in time for the first round of the 1964 championship at the Daytona Continental on February 16th. It was painted in the team colour of Viking Blue with a horizontal yellow identification band across the nose. It took part in five races that season and as was the case with all old race cars it was sold at the end of the year, along with CSX2301, to the Radford race team based in the UK. It continued to compete in the FIA championship rounds until it was struck from behind by a Daytona coupe.
The damage was repaired using several parts from CSX2301 which had earlier been written off in a fatal accident and this led to many years of confusion as to the car’s identity as the mechanics at Radford had painted over the identification marks on 2260; when it was sold to a private buyer at the end of 1965 it took several years to clarify the situation. It changed hands a number of times before the facts were ascertained by marque experts while the car was undergoing a full restoration. The period photograph shows 2260 as it appeared during the 1970s before the value of the FIA 289 Cobra team cars began to spiral rapidly into seven-figures sums. At the time, CSX2260 was a used, second-hand old race car but one that was still able to attract the attention of the younger generation while parked on the lawn outside the owner’s home.
