1964 Cooper Ford "King Cobra"

Chassis #: CM/6/64

Est. 450 bhp, Ford 289 cu. in. V8 engine, four-speed transaxle, four-wheel independent suspension with coil springs over tubular shock absorbers, four-wheel disc brakes.

- Riverside LA Times Grand Prix-winner on Oct. 11th, 1964 with Parnelli Jones
- Likely the most famous, original and correct ’64 Shelby Team King Cobra
- Many historic racing entries, including Monterey Historics
- FIA papers, documentation and continuous ownership history

1960s Sports Car Racing in the U.S.

Early 1960s sports car racing as sanctioned by the SCCA and USAC was in a visible state of flux. Professional drivers of mid-engined sports racing cars were beginning to replace Birdcage, Lister and Chaparral I pilots atop victory podiums on a regular basis. A cagey young Roger Penske identified the rear engine trend and managed to collect all the marbles – some $20,000 in winning both the Riverside and Laguna Seca Fall of 1962 Pro races in his “Zerex Special,” a barely legal Cooper F-1 car converted to a center-seat sports racing car. Bruce McLaren eventually bought the Zerex and, after two races with a 4-cylinder Coventry Climax, replaced it with an American Oldsmobile V8 to take the 1964 Mosport Player’s 200 in Canada.

By 1963, as McLaren had demonstrated, a 240 hp Climax 4-cylinder engine was not man enough for the job anymore. It now took a good old American V8 modified to crank out upwards of 400 hp. The absolute pioneer of the new mid-engined brigade was Canada’s Bill Sadler and his two Sadler-Chevrolet MK 5s, built as early as 1961. But these were more often than not immobilized by their home-made two-speed transaxles – no gearboxes were yet commercially available that would accept the monster torque of a V8. This changed in 1963 when
ZF and the even more robust American transaxles by Bob McKee and BMC/Huffaker became available.

The Shelby King Cobras

Carroll Shelby, another road racing opportunist, didn’t need a written invitation to enter the new big buck Pro series. Although his small block Cobras were dominant in SCCA production racing, they were quickly relegated to “also-ran” status in such professional racing events. Shelby’s staff displayed enough in-house talent to design and build their own Ford V8 sports racing car, but time was of the essence, so Shelby again turned to a U.K. supplier as he had with the early AC Cobra, in this case the Cooper Car Company of Surbiton in Surrey.

Cooper was the acknowledged specialist in mid- or rear-engine racing cars, having constructed tiny motorcycle-powered Formula III single-seaters starting immediately after WW II. Sports racing cars followed with the mid-1950s “manx-tailed” two-seater sports cars usually powered by Climax four-cylinder 1100 cc engines. With drivers like Brabham and McLaren, the little Cooper Company’s 2.5 liter Climax powered monopostos actually won the World’s Formula One championship in 1959 and 1960, beating mega-money outfits like Ferrari, Porsche and BRM.

At the same time, the Cooper Monaco, a two-seater version of the victorious single-seat Formula One car, was sweeping the boards in sports racing car events. A sturdier adaptation of the Monaco, upgraded to take V8 power, would be just the ticket, reasoned Shelby. Over the next two years (1963/64), he would order a total of eight such cars, shipped from England without engines, gearboxes and radiators. Two of these were sold to the Canadian Comstock Racing Team and another car was sold to Craig Lang, the Olympia Brewery heir, while the remaining five became Shelby Team King Cobras, driven by MacDonald, Holbert, Miles, Ginther, Bucknum, Bondurant and Parnelli Jones.

The first two King Cobras, arriving in 1963, CM/1/63 and CM/3/63, were quickly pressed into service with both MacDonald and Holbert lowering the track record at Riverside and Kent and MacDonald
winning at Riverside (1963) and Augusta, Georgia (1964).

For the 1964 season, Shelby ordered four more King Cobras – CM/1/64, CM/4/64, CM/5/64 and CM/6/64. The first car CM/1/64 as per above was sold to Craig Lang – later morphing into the “Lang Cooper” after Holbert crashed it. The remaining three cars, CM/4/64, CM/5/64 and CM/6/64, were painted Guardsman Blue with white Le Mans stripes and finished as Shelby Team cars for the west coast Fall series. They were all fitted with McKee transaxles, replacing the previous ZF units which did not readily allow the necessary quick gear ratio changes.

The most impressive King Cobra outright win of 1964 was surely Parnelli Jones’ dominant performance aboard our auction-presented #94 car, chassis CM/6/64, in the Riverside LA Times Grand Prix. Ed Leslie came 4th, Bondurant 5th and Ginther 7th, the latter two also at the wheel of Shelby Team cars. The 1964 season saw the end of Shelby’s successful foray into modified road racing. The King Cobras had served their purpose well for two seasons, but race cars are not noted for their long shelf life. And besides, Shelby was fielding Cobras in USRRC and FIA events plus the struggling Ford GT40 project had just been dropped in his lap! Additionally, the 427 Cobra and GT 350 concepts were about to demand serious Shelby attention.

The Team cars were put up for sale but interest was minimal – by 1965 when Californian Bill Lowell purchased CM/6/64, new Can Am cars by Chaparral, Lola and McLaren had made the proud old King Cobra warriors obsolete.

King Cobra CM/6/64 – Post-Shelby History

Bill Lowell and/or Lother Motschenbacker of Van Nuys, California purchased this King Cobra on July 23rd, 1965, but Shelby repossessed it when payment was not forthcoming. It was then advertised in Shelby’s famous “Garage Sale” in Autoweek on June 6th, 1965. Can Am character Oscar Koveleski of Scranton, Pennsylvania bought both car CM/5/64 and our car CM/6/64 in March of 1966. The car then went to a Dick Johnson of Madison, Wisconsin who did not do much with CM/6/64. Ditto for the following owner, Wayne Lyndon of Roseville, California. On November 28th, 1981, Lyndon sold CM/6/64 to fellow Californian Barry Brown, who was destined to become the saviour of the Parnelli Jones Team King Cobra. A Bill of Sale from Lyndon describes our car as a rolling chassis with suspension, wheels, steering, brakes, McKee gearbox and a 289 Ford engine. Only the side body panels and doors are listed in the body department.

Brown commenced a total and exhaustive restoration spanning a two year period, including the supply of correct new aluminum nose and tail sections from the original U.K.-based Cooper Car Company supplier. Barry Brown’s high standards of restoration and race preparation are likely best illustrated by his wins in
the 1983 and 1984 Group 4B Monterey Historics race over other King Cobras, Porsche RSKs, Lotus 19s and 23s. In the following years, CM/6/64 became almost a fixture of Steve Earle’s Historic Racing events, scoring many more podium finishes for Brown.

After some two decades with Barry Brown, the #94 King Cobra joined the respected Arizona-based collection of Lawrence Bowman, which included other Shelby legends such as a Daytona Coupe and 427 Cobra A-Production car.
In 2006 Bowman’s King Cobra was back at the Monterey Historics, and in 2008 it was featured in the “Cars of Parnelli Jones” and won a Best in Class at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.

Bowman sold this car at auction in early 1999 to the present owner – another well known Ford collector.

It is here offered for sale with FIA Papers and a continuous ownership history, plus letters of confirmation from Phil Remington and Carroll Shelby, and is likely the most famous, original and correct 1964 Shelby Team King Cobra currently available.


Addendum:

Please note that this vehicle is sold on a bill of sale only.