Review: Shelby Cobra Daytona 1964 season
Background
With Ferrari having so far completely dominated the Group 3 Grand Touring era of the World Sportscar Championship, the Ford-backed Shelby outfit with its trick new Cobra Daytonas went into the 1964 season determined to knock the so far undefeated Italian firm off its perch.
Ferrari were immediately at a disadvantage as the mid-engined 250 LM conceived for 1964 had rightly been refused homologation which meant a hastily prepared low drag Series 2 version of the eponymous 250 GTO had to be created.
As for Shelby, only one Cobra Daytona was initially available to the American outfit. A second car would come on stream in time for Le Mans and a third for the season-ending Tour de France. However, in the meantime Shelby also had myriad standard-bodied Cobra roadsters at its disposal.
Although twelve rounds of the 1964 series catered for over two-litre Division 3 cars such as the GTO and Cobra Daytona, World Championship rules stipulated only a manufacturer’s best six race results (plus one hillclimb) counted towards their final points tally.
1964 Daytona 2000km
The 1964 season kicked off with the Daytona 2000km (February 16th) which was only open to GT cars from Division 2 (1300cc to 2000cc) and the premier Division 3 category (for vehicles over 2000cc).
In attendance was a solitary Series 2 Ferrari GTO run by the firm’s US importer, NART, albeit with works drivers and mechanics. It was backed by hordes of Series 1 GTOs which were matched in number by a fleet of standard Cobras.
Also present in the Division 3 class were a smattering of Corvettes and a pair of privateer Aston Martin DP214s.
Shelby still only had the prototype Cobra Daytona (CSX2287) which was entered for Bob Holbert and Dave MacDonald. The rest of the four-car Shelby team for the event comprised three Cobra roadsters.
Holbert / MacDonald went quickest in practice to set a pole time two tenths of a second faster than the Shelby Cobra of Tommy Hitchcock / Zourab Tchkotoa / Jo Schlesser. Third spot went to the NART Series 2 GTO of Pedro Rodriguez / Phil Hill while David Piper / Lucien Bianchi started fourth in the best of the privateer Series 1 GTOs.
In the race, the Cobra Daytona soon took the lead and began to drive away from the Series 2 GTO of Hill / Rodriguez.
At mid distance it looked as though the American car was set for a comfortable victory. However, soon afterwards it started to show signs of rear axle trouble and began to slow.
CSX2287 was still lying second when it was retired some seven hours into the race. The withdrawal occurred when the car was jacked up in the pits for an inspection of the failing axle; a small fire broke out and curtailed any further participation.
Phil Hill and Pedro Rodriguez took the win in their Series 2 GTO. More Ferraris were second and third with the best Cobra (the works Bob Johnson / Dan Gurney roadster) fourth.
1964 Sebring 12 Hours
Round two of the 1964 championship was the Sebring 12 Hours on March 21st. Along with the Targa Florio, Nurburgring 1000km and Le Mans 24 Hours, Sebring was one of four races that made up the Coupes de Sports. This meant prototypes were in attendance and outright victory for a GT car like the Cobra Daytona was highly unlikely although there was still a full complement of championship points on offer.
Ken Miles was down to drive one of Shelby’s works Cobra roadsters at Sebring, but he also went out in CSX2287 to help with set up. It was during one of these practice laps that Miles wrapped the Cobra Daytona round a tree. The car was rebuilt in time for the race, but further attention would be given to the slightly out of shape chassis once back at the factory.
Qualifying was dominated by the Ferrari 275 P and 330 P prototypes which were out in force. Scuderia Ferrari took first, fourth and fifth on the grid while the sister cars from Maranello Concessionaires and NART were second and third.
Holbert and MacDonald were best of the rest in CSX2287. They qualified a full second faster than the prototype class Corvette Grand Sport in seventh. Quickest of the GT Ferraris was the works Carlo Mario Abate / Jean Guichet Series 2 GTO in 13th. NART’s Daytona winning GTO lined up 15th in the hands of David Piper / Mike Gammino / Pedro Rodriguez.
At mid distance, CSX2287 was lying eighth overall and third in the GT class behind a pair of Cobra roadsters.
Thereafter, Holbert and MacDonald continued to progress up the leaderboard. By the end of the twelve hour event they had risen to fourth overall.
First, second and third spots were taken by Ferrari prototypes which meant the Cobra Daytona secured its maiden GT class win of the year.
One of Shelby’s works Cobras came fifth and a Ford France Cobra was sixth which meant a GT class lock out was achieved by the American cars. Best of the Ferraris was NART’s Series 2 GTO in seventh overall, fourth in class.
1964 Le Mans Test
As preparation for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June, Shelby sent CSX2287 to France for the annual Le Mans Test weekend which took place over the weekend of April 18th and 19th.
Jo Schlesser and Phil Hill were on driving duty with Schlesser also doing some laps in Ford’s brand new GT40 Prototype which was making its debut.
Conditions were wet and Schlesser had already complained about the GT40’s high speed instability when, on his eighth lap, he lost control down the Mulsanne Straight at over 150mph. Fortunately, the car neither overturned nor went into the trees and Schlesser emerged with just a minor cut to his face. The Ford was a write off, but Schlesser was able to continue his role for Shelby.
The Cobra Daytona ultimately went on to post fifth fastest time at the Le Mans Test. It was five seconds per lap faster than the next quickest GT car in attendance (Peter Lindner’s new low drag Jaguar E-type). However, there were no Series 2 GTOs present.
Another new machine in present at the Le Mans Test was AC Cars’’ own Cobra Coupe which the English team had worked night and day to finish on time. Peter Bolton gave the car a gentle shakedown to go 27th fastest.
1964 Targa Florio
For round three of the World Sportscar Championship, the Targa Florio on April 26th, Shelby ran four Cobra roadsters as the tight and twisty Sicilian circuit would not have suited the Daytona’s high speed design characteristics.
The Shelby crew were beaten to Division 3 honours by a works-supported Series 2 GTO.
1964 Spa 500km
Unlike the Targa Florio, a 500km race at Spa three weeks later (round four) was right up the Cobra Daytona’s street.
Held on May 17th, the event was organised for Division 2 and 3 GT cars which meant no prototypes.
Only one driver was required per car and Shelby opted to put Phil Hill in CSX2287. Innes Ireland, Bob Bondurant and Jo Schlesser were entered in standard-bodied works Cobras.
The Ferrari contingent was particularly strong in Belgium with a trio of factory-supported Series 2 GTOs joined by a host of Series 1 derivatives plus Lightweight E-types and the Dawnay Racing Aston Martin DP214s.
Mike Parkes took pole in the Maranello Concessionaires Series 2 GTO and Hill was second in CSX2287. Jean Guichet lined up third in one of the Scuderia Filipinetti Series 2 GTOs while Dick Protheroe started fourth in his E-type.
Phil Hill made a fabulous start in the Cobra Daytona, but engine trouble for the American car allowed Parkes to go passed at Stavelot.
Hill immediately came into the pits to have a petrol blockage cleared. He subsequently made two further stops to address the same problem; it transpired his engine had been sabotaged with cotton swabs in the fuel line.
By the time the issue had seemingly been resolved, the Cobra Daytona had lost too much time to be a serious threat.
Nevertheless, Hill rejoined and set a new lap record on his way back up to second place (albeit still several laps behind Parkes). Unfortunately, CSX2287 was later retired with fuel starvation owing to more waste rag blocking the fuel lines.
Parkes went on to win by just over a minute from the Filipinetti Series 2 GTOs of Jean Guichet and Lorenzo Bandini.
Death of Dave MacDonald
Two weeks after Spa, Shelby works driver Dave MacDonald was killed in a fiery seven-car accident at the Indianapolis 500.
1964 Nurburgring 1000km
Shelby ran a two-car team of Cobra roadsters at the Nurburgring 1000km on May 31st, but neither vehicle had a successful race and the Ecurie Francorchamps Series 2 Ferrari GTO emerged as the Division 3 class winner.
1964 Rossfeld Hillclimb
On June 7th, privateer Edoardo Lualdi picked up another class win for Ferrari with victory in the Rossfeld Hillclimb driving his Series 2 GTO.
1964 Le Mans 24 Hours
Next up was the race with ultimate bragging rights, the Le Mans 24 Hours, which took place over the weekend of June 20th and 21st.
In England, AC Cars had been busy working on their own Cobra Coupe which first appeared at the Le Mans Test in April. Famously, at dawn on the morning of 10th June, AC were caught using the M1 motorway for some high speed tests prior to their departure for France. Driving the Cobra Coupe, Peter Bolton and Jack Sears hit 185mph on public roads which made the front pages of nearly every major British newspaper.
As for Shelby, they finally had a second Cobra Daytona ready in time for the big race at la Sarthe.
The new car (CSX2299) was entered for Dan Gurney / Bob Bondurant while the original (CSX2287) was allocated to Jochen Neerpasch / Chris Amon. Shelby only had two cars for Le Mans and one of the team’s entry slots had been secured from Briggs Cunningham.
In addition to a plethora of prototypes, Ferrari had four Series 2 GTOs on hand. Further opposition in the GT category would come from a selection of privateer Jaguars and Aston Martins.
It was the Gurney / Bondurant Cobra Daytona that proved fastest of the GT class machinery in practice. Their time garnered tenth on the grid and was 2.1 seconds quicker than the next Grand Tourer: the AC Cobra Coupe of Jack Sears / Peter Bolton which lined up 13th.
The privateer Aston Martin DP214 of Mike Salmon / Peter Sutcliffe qualified 14th while the fastest Series 2 Ferrari GTO was the Equipe Nationale Belge entry of Lucien Bianchi / Jean Blaton (19th).
In the race, Neerpasch got a great start and was seventh off the line, but he soon dropped out of the top ten as the faster cars got up to speed.
At the one hour mark, Gurney was sixth in the new Cobra Daytona and Sears lay seventh in the AC Cars machine.
Neerpasch re-entered the top ten as darkness fell.
Shortly after 10pm, the race was rocked by a massive accident.
In the AC Cobra Coupe, Peter Bolton had a tyre blowout and left the road between Arnage and Maison Blanche. The AC was hit by Giancarlo Baghetti’s Ferrari 275 P and shot into a ditch. Here it collided with and fatally injured three spectators who were watching in a prohibited area. Baghetti was uninjured while Bolton was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
By midnight, Gurney and Bondurant had moved the lead Cobra Daytona up to fourth and were just five laps in arrears.
Two-and-a-half hours later, the Shelby attack was dealt its first serious blow when the Neerpasch / Amon entry was disqualified for receiving a push start in the pits.
Undeterred, Gurney and Bondurant pressed on in the brand new car. At 5am, they had moved up to third, some six laps behind the lead Ferrari.
Prior to the finish, CSX2299 was passed by a recovering Ferrari 330 P, but fourth overall and a GT class distance record for the Cobra Daytona was a fine achievement.
Fifth and sixth spots went to privateer Ferrari 250 GTOs, one of which was just a lap behind Gurney / Bondurant.
1964 Reims 12 Hours
Two weeks after Le Mans, France hosted another major World Sportscar Championship event: the Reims 12 Hours on July 5th.
Open to GT cars and Prototypes, the Prototypes were permitted to attend, but not score championship points.
Shelby entered the two Cobra Daytonas from Le Mans: Gurney / Bondurant were in the new car while Neerpasch was joined by Innes Ireland in the original chassis that had been used since the start of the year.
Gurney / Bondurant qualified fifth behind a brace of GT40 Prototypes and Ferrari 250 LMs. Next fastest GT car was the Maranello Concessionaires Series 2 GTO of Parkes / Scarfiotti followed by Ireland / Neerpasch in the second Cobra Daytona.
The race started at midnight and ran until noon.
After 16 laps, Gurney came into the pits with the car steaming and took on more water.
With an hour gone, Ireland lay second in the GT class behind Parkes’ Ferrari. Gurney had been badly delayed and his race ended soon afterwards with a broken gearbox casing.
Ireland was still second in class when, at 5am, he brought the sister car into the pits; the exhaust pipe had broken and allowed fumes into the cockpit. The already retired Cobra Daytona was cannibalised for parts, but it proved too lengthy a task to replace the broken pipe and Ireland / Neerpasch also retired.
Parkes / Scarfiotti won the GT class with third place overall while first and second positions went to the 250 LMs of Scuderia Ferrari and NART respectively.
1964 Freiburg-Schauinsland Hillclimb
Rather than send the Cobra Daytonas to the Freiburg-Schauinsland Hillclimb on August 9th, Shelby dispatched Bondurant and Neerpasch with a pair of more nimble Cobra roadsters.
Bondurant beat Ludovico Scarfiotti’s works Series 2 GTO by three seconds to take fourth overall and secure another good haul of championship points.
1964 Goodwood Tourist Trophy
Two weeks later, both Cobra Daytonas were back out on track for the Goodwood Tourist Trophy World Championship race in England. The 500km contest at Goodwood was run to the same class format as Reims, but with a single driver per car.
Pole went to Bruce McLaren’s Zerex Special and Jim Clark was second in his works Lotus 30. The Cobra Daytonas were the fastest GT cars back in eleventh (Dan Gurney) and twelfth (Phil Hll).
In the race, Hill had to stop early for a fractured oil pipe and lost eight minutes which dropped him to the back of field. Additional trips to the pits for low oil and a replacement fuel filler cap put him right out of contention.
At the head of the GT class, the Cobra roadsters of Roy Salvadori and Jack Sears led Gurney for much of the race. However, Salvadori retired with a broken clutch at two thirds distance and Gurney went passed Sears’ Willment Cobra to bag third overall and the GT class win.
Hill persevered to eventually place eleventh overall and eighth in the GT class, but he finished a distant ten laps behind Gurney.
1964 Sierre-Montana Crans Hillclimb
A breathless two days after Goodwood, the Shelby crew attended the Sierre-Montana Crans Hillclimb.
Three Cobra roadsters were sent to Switzerland for Bondurant, Neerpasch and Schlesser. In the absence of any works Ferraris, they scooped another Division 3 class win.
With two World Championship rounds to go, Ferrari still held the advantage with five victories (Daytona, the Targa Florio, Spa, the Nurburgring and Rossfeld) compared to Shelby’s four (Sebring, Le Mans, Freiburg and Montana Crans, but only one of these hillclimb wins could count towards a manufacturer’s final points tally.
Shelby’s Cobra roadsters were expected to take the Bridgehampton 500km on September 20th, but the Americans would also have to win the gruelling Tour de France which started on September 11th and ended on the 20th.
1964 Tour de France
The Tour de France was a mix of eight circuit races and eight hillclimbs connected by an epic 6000km of regularity sections on public roads. At no point was there enough time for a major service.
Three Cobra Daytonas were entered: a brand new car for Bondurant / Neerpasch, the Le Mans and Reims winner for Maurice Trintignant / Bernard de Saint-Auban and the original prototype for Andre Simon / Maurice Dupeyron (which was entered by Ford France).
On day one (Saturday) Neerpasch won the opening high speed race at Reims with Trintignant second while Simon finished back in eighth.
Up the 7km Bramont Hillclimb, Bondurant took over from Neerpasch in the new car and made it back-to-back stage wins. Trintignant was fifth and Simon finished outside the top ten.
Day two (Sunday) included a one hour race at Rouen during which trouble struck the event-leading Bondurant / Neerpasch entry. Bondurant was seemingly assured of second place behind Trintignant when his accelerator cable broke at the Noveau Monde hairpin. Bondurant was credited with 16th place while Trintignant won. Guichet’s Series 1 GTO was second and Bianchi’s similar car was third. Simon finished fourth in the other Cobra Daytona.
Le Mans hosted a 383km race on day three (Monday), but the Bondurant / Neerpasch Cobra Daytona had a gearbox failure en-route which put it out of the event.
The race at Le Mans lasted for over two hours. Victory went to Guichet’s GTO which finished 5km ahead of the Bianchi GTO. Trintignant was best placed of the remaining Cobra Daytonas in third (1km behind Bianchi).
This result put Trintignant in the overall lead with Bianchi second and Fernand Tavano’s Series 1 GTO third.
Unfortunately, the night section after Le Mans saw a long distance road section full of very short stages to prevent any work on the cars. It accounted for both remaining Cobras barely a third of the way through the competition.
Victory ultimately went to the Lucien Bianchi / Georges Berger Series 1 GTO. The similar car of Jean Guichet / Michel de Bourbon-Parme was second.
1964 Championship Standings
Even though Shelby’s Cobra roadsters did win at Bridgehampton a few days after the Tour de France, the championship went to Ferrari with 84.6 points compared to Shelby’s 78.3.
However, Shelby would be back with a vengeance in 1965, a year which saw Ferrari’s sports car racing fortunes begin to fade.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Ford - https://www.ford.com, Dave Friedman / The Henry Ford - https://www.thehenryford.org/ & Peter Brock
