The Driver’s Seat: Henry Catchpole on the New Shelby Cobra CSX10000

The new Shelby Cobra CSX10000 is the first new Cobra to be listed in the Shelby Registry since the 1960s. It’s been made available in the U.K. first, through Clive Sutton Cars in London, and Hagerty has been behind the wheel. After seeing the larger (too large?) 18-inch wheels, Henry Catchpole was skeptical, but as soon as he heard it start up, he couldn’t help but smile at the sound from the side-exit exhausts. 

On the face of it, the engine isn’t anything particularly special—Ford’s 5-liter Coyote V-8 has been in plenty of cars over the years—but it’s never sounded better than in this latest Cobra. It’s linked to a Tremec six-speed manual gearbox with a long, forward-leaning shifter that has a fabulous feel to it. With 460 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque to propel just 2400 pounds, performance is certainly fulsome enough to match the noise. 

However, while this looks like a Cobra, sounds like a Cobra, and goes like a Cobra, it certainly isn’t as demanding to drive as an original Cobra. The power-assisted steering means it’s a doddle to potter about at low speeds, and the huge tires—275 section at the front and 335 section at the rear—ensure huge amounts of grip to give a sense of security even when you’re pressing deeper into the throttle’s travel (at least on dry roads). 

Of course, it’s all very well looking and sounding like a Cobra to the casual observer—there are plenty of replicas that do decent job of that—but what will the die-hard Shelby fans think of it? As luck would have it, Catchpole knows just such a person. Alan Faulkner has been restoring muscle cars for 40 years, and what he doesn’t know about Shelbys probably wouldn’t fill the back of an envelope. So, we took the new Cobra CSX10000 along to see him and get his opinion (after having a poke around his wonderful workshop).