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| Sebring Legend |
While loosely based on the Cobra chassis and drivetrain, the Daytona Coupe from Shelby was made for motorsports purposes, mainly for GT-class racing where it targets the Ferrari and its other rivals of its class. Thanks to the Daytona Coupe, Shelby is the first American constructor to win a title at the FIA World Sportscar Championship in 1965.
Since Carroll Shelby's win in 1959 Le Mans, he wanted to return to this motorsport to defeat Enzo Ferarri again in his own game. Although, the Cobra is a successful GT racer, the open top looks is a problem when it reaches the Mulsanne Straight of Le Mans at the top speed of 157mph, almost 30 less than the Ferrari 250 GTO. Even with a special hard-tops, it wasn't quite enough to provide more aerodynamics than the Ferrari racers on the straights, so he enlisted former General Motors stylist, Pete Brock, to pen a low drag coupe body.
The Daytona Coupe is made out of aluminum body and tubular steel frame for its chassis so it weights about 1,043 kilos. Powering this is Ford's 289 90-degree V8 engine with OHV, which churns out 390BHP of power and 462Nm of torque while mated with a Borg-Warner T-10 M 4 speed Manual. It can do 0-60 in 4.4 seconds and top speed of 191mph.
During its tenure, the Shelby Daytona Coupe garnered several class wins at Sebring and Le Mans. It even garnered GT-class wins at Monza, Nurburgring, and Reims. In 1965, it garnered 23 land speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
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