No Cobra is irrelevant – Shelby and AC Cars made sure of it. But there is a Cobra to end all Cobras, and that’s Carroll Shelby’s personal Super Snake. Not all Cobras got created equally. Some got motivation from a Ford 260 cu-in V8 mill, while others made good of a 289, 427, or 428 cu-in V8. Even so, whichever Cobra you encounter on the road or in showrooms is one of just 998 classic Cobras produced between 1961 and 1968. This figure includes street-legal, competition, and semi-competition Cobras. However, no gearhead worth their salt can argue the supremacy of a genuine 427 cu-in Cobra.

In January 2007, a 1966 Shelby Cobra Super Snake set a world record at a Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction. Buyer, Ron Pratt, dug deep to pay $5.5 million for the classic sports car. Perhaps, a 41-year-old British machine can demand such a price if it is just one of two ever built and was a personal conveyor for a racing legend and performance car builder like Carroll Shelby.

Related: Carroll Shelby Would Be Proud Of This New AC Cobra Concept

A British Sports Car With An American Heart

Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake - Side View
Via Barrett Jackson

The Cobra wasn’t born in America. The original manufacturer was the British automaker AC Cars. AC Cars equipped the Cobra with a Ford V8 engine, essentially making the Cobra a British sports car with an American heart. The Cobra got produced intermittently in the UK and the US starting in 1962.

At that time, British automakers relied on the Bristol Cars-built inline-six engine, and so did AC Cars for its limited-production models, including the two-seater AC Ace roadster. Like Bristol Cars' hand-built luxury models, the AC Ace roadster was hand-built on a tube frame and wrapped with aluminum body panels using English wheel machining.

America’s Carroll Shelby approached AC Cars in 1961, asking if the British company would consider building him such a roadster, but modified to accommodate a V8 mill. The precedence to this request is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that what Shelby essentially wanted was a version of the British-made Ace roadster modified to accept America's V8 to get paired with a Borg-Warner manual transmission.

Shelby was particularly encouraged to make this request because AC had lost its outdated straight-six lump. AC had just quit using the outdated pre-war BMW-design engine on the Ace roadster, the same year Carroll – now retired from professional racing – penned his request to the company. AC agreed to Shelby’s request as long as the V8 was worth it.

Carroll approached Chevrolet to provide the V8s, but Chevy wouldn’t encourage the birth of a Corvette rival, and so declined. However, a Corvette rival is exactly what Ford was looking for, and it just happened that the Blue Oval had just what Carroll was looking for, the then-brand-new 3.6-liter Windsor lightweight, small-block V8 engine. With two Ford Windsor engines on hand, Carroll was ready.

Specifications Of The Shelby Cobra 427

Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake rear
Barrett-Jackson

The 427 required a new chassis. Shelby collaborated with Ford to develop the new chassis – internally designated Mark III – using 101.6 mm (4 in) main chassis tubes, up from 76.2 mm (3 in), and coil spring suspension all around. This new Cobra got propulsion from a “side oiler” Ford 7.0-liter FE engine with a single four-barrel 780 CFM Holley carburetor.

The engine was good for 425 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 480 lb-ft of torque at 3,700 rpm. It propelled the standard Cobra 427 to a top speed of 164 miles per hour. The music got a lot more interesting, with the S/C (Semi-Competition) model producing 485 horsepower and making a top speed of 185 mph. Cosmetically, the Cobra 427 stood out with a wide fender and larger radiator opening.

Related: EXCLUSIVE: AC/Shelby Cobra Rendering Brings An Icon To The Modern Era

The Super Snake Was The Cobra To End All Cobras

Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake front
Barrett-Jackson

In January 1962, AC kicked off the Cobra deal with Carroll Shelby with chassis number CSX2000 prototype. In 1966, Shelby had the chassis CSX3015 Euro promotional tour model converted into what he described as the Cobra to end all Cobras – the Super Snake. This Cobra-eater is originally a racing roadster now motivated by Twin Paxton Superchargers (TPS) and converted into a road-legal Cobra by way of mufflers, bumpers, windshields, and other such modifications.

Even so, not everything on the Super Snake got the "legal" treatment. For example, the race-bred tail, headers, and brakes remained untouched. Shelby created a second street-legal Super Snake with chassis CSX3303 as a gift for his friend Bill Cosby. When chassis CSX3303 proved too much for the comedian to handle, he returned it to Shelby, who, in turn, shipped the car to a dealer in San Francisco.

Chassis CSX3303 was ultimately lost to the Pacific Ocean after the dealer sold the car to a customer named Tony Maxey. As if to vindicate Cosby, the car proved too much for Maxey to handle as well, who ultimately lost his life after driving the car off a cliff and ending up in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Shelby had no such trouble with his CSX3015 Super Snake, occasionally entering it into local races like the Turismos Visitadores Cannonball-Run in Nevada, “waking [up] whole towns, blowing out windows, throwing belts, and catching fire a couple of times, but finishing.” This background explains how special the Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake really is and why it had no trouble fetching more than $5 million at auction.

Why The Last Cobra Super Snake Swallowed $5.5 Million In 2021

Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake Parked
Mecum Auctions

If Carroll Shelby built a car that he drove himself and had less than 100 horsepower, that car would easily rake in a million dollars at auctions. But here is the sole-surviving Cobra to end all Cobras, crafted and used as personal transportation by Shelby himself, and belching out not 1 but 800 horsepower. Shelby said the Super Snake could lunge from zero to 60 mph in a little over three seconds.

Now, imagine that Carroll Shelby was present to hand the keys to the new owner. “When I built this dual supercharged 427 Cobra in 1966, I wanted it to be the fastest, meanest car on the road,” Shelby said on the Barrett-Jackson website. “Forty years later, it will still kick the tail of just about anything in the world. It's the fastest street-legal Cobra I've ever owned.” The car popped up at the Barrett-Jackson auction again in 2021 and once again fetched $5.5m.

Sources: Barrett-Jackson, Wikipedia, Robb Report