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Shelby's GT40s failed at Le Mans in 1965, but these two special cars - the ex-Dan Gurney Daytona coupé and ex-Bob Bondurant Cobra – took the fight to Ferrari that season... and won

- Words Harry Hurst P

" While it is presumptuous for me to expect to beat a team with so many years of racing experience, we find ourselves in the enviable position of leading on points. It would be a shame if we didn't at least try to bring the World Championship to America.

Carroll Shelby said these words right after his Cobras had won the GT class at Sebring in March 1964. This encouraging result led Ford Motor Company to 'hedge its bets' on challenging Ferrari's might with the new prototype Ford GT, finding the money for Shelby to continue to Europe to provide a rearguard action with his Cobras. The goal: to win the FIA World Manufacturers' Championship for GT cars, a category that Ferrari had won convincingly with its 250 GTO the year before.

To accomplish this seemingly impossible task, Shelby would utilise two strikingly different cars competing in the same class: the venerable Cobra roadster, which had proven itself on the short tracks in the US, and a new secret weapon, the radical 'Daytona' Coupe, which was legal in the GT class since it was built on the same chassis as the roadster.

Shelby needed the Coupe since the tracks in Europe put a premium on top-end speed. explains Allen Grant, a Shelby team driver for the 1965 season. 'The tracks over there had straightaways that were longer than entire tracks in America. The Cobra roaster had a top speed of only about 155; we called it "a good-looking brick".

Enter Peter Brock, a graduate of (and teacher at) ArtCenter College of Design, and a former GM designer. Brock convinced Shelby that the answer was to put a new, sleek body on the antiquated, transverse-leaf-sprung Cobra chassis made by AC in England. It was possible to use a different body due to a bending of the rules that Ferrari had originally exploited to homologate the GTO body on the 250 chassis.