Cobra Unearthed by the Barn Find Hunter Headed to Mecum Kissimmee
Tom Cotter has turned up plenty of collectible muscle cars, sports cars, and 4x4s over the course of his Barn Find Hunter career, but uncovering one of the most desirable and rare Shelby Cobras ever built has got to be one of his best discoveries yet. After spending nearly 30 years in storage, the 1967 427 Cobra made a splash and brought a solid sale price in 2018, and now it’s back in the spotlight and headed for Mecum’s Kissimmee sale in January.
The original 289 Cobra was a beautiful melding of British style and American small-block V-8 power. It rightfully earned its place in the sports car pantheon on its own, but the FE-powered models were another level of fearsome as the 427 V-8 brought big-block levels of torque and a commensurate bump in horsepower. Their racing prowess on road courses and dragstrips alike make them the stuff of legend.
This time capsule was one of only 260 original 427 Street Cobras built and shows just 18,035 miles on the odometer. It is one of the best preserved, most original examples of its kind. How original? It has the original chassis, body, engine, and four-speed transmission, of course. But this Cobra looks like it was just prepped for delivery at the dealership. There’s still a warning sticker on the speedometer, and the roadster still wears its original weather stripping, heater hoses, and even the Goodyear Blue Dot tires that came with it when new. The sale includes original documentation, a jack, a tool kit, and even the grease gun supplied to owners for chassis lubrication.
The stunning survivor was last sold in 2018 at Gooding’s Amelia Island sale, where it brought $1,045,000. Since its last sale, where it was presented as a barn find, the roadster has been nicely detailed and is now heading to Mecum’s Kissimmee sale in January, where it could find a welcome audience of bidders. Mecum has been the place for sought-after Fords lately: Monterey Car Week saw the $7,850.00 sale of a 1969 Ford GT40 lightweight this past August, and a road-going Mk I GT40 fetched $6,930,000 in Kissimmee this past January. Though those cars are a different branch of the Ford family tree, Mecum does appear to be burnishing its reputation for moving blue-chip American classics.
If you’d like to see what the car looked like when it first made its way back into the spotlight in 2018, here’s the episode of Barn Find Hunter where it debuted alongside a Ferrari 275 GTB.
One of the best of the series of Barn Find Hunter episodes that showcased two of the most sought after classics from a truly peak era. Beautiful cars.
Must be a typo, I don’t think $7850.00 would have bought the lug nuts on that 1969 Ford GT40 Lightweight😂😂
I would have bought it but paying the 10% $785 buyer’s premium was deal breaker for me.
🙂
You’re right Sderby, I’m always commenting on how often I see articles that were obviously written and then posted without being first proofread for mistakes. It makes them look less than professional.
Agreed.” where it was presented as a bard find” Rather Shakespearean I must say.
I remember that episode. What a find more than one nice car.
The sad thing about this is seeing a car full of Mouse nests. It was not driven, which to me is sad.
I’d never known Cobra speedometers wound counterclockwise. Is that so you feel comfortable at 140MPH but freak out if you realize you’re only going 40?
Pretty sure both the competition and semi competition ( SCs were comp units converted into street cars ) used a single 4-bbl setup not the dual quads.