Carroll’s formula lives in the Shelby American Cobra CSX8000
and the Flyin’ Miata Habu V-8.
As we walk through the Shelby American Collection in
Boulder, every Cobra in this museum of racing cars and racing memorabilia tells
us an amazing story. It might seem like the story happened a very long time
ago, but when we walk out into the sunlight and find a new Shelby American
Cobra waiting for us, we understand why the Cobra never goes out of date.
The Shelby Cobra is a tuner car, the kind of car that every
American has in his imagination, a personal expression of speed that’s been
kludged together from whatever bits and pieces might be lying around. A tuner
car is strong on imagination and maybe a little weak on thinking things
through, but that’s how we do it here in America.
The Shelby Cobra
is the most copied car on the planet
Shelby American built this car alongside a range of Cobra
and Ford Mustang models in its own facility in Las Vegas. The Shelby Cobra is
the most copied car on the planet, but this 50th Anniversary edition is the
most unusual one we’ve ever driven. It very faithfully reproduces the simple
body-on-frame chassis of the AC Ace and adds a cooking version of a small-block
Ford V-8, just like the car that Carroll Shelby first hammered together
overnight in the workshop of hot-rodder Dean Moon in 1962.
The Flyin’ Miata
Habu V-8 feels as if it’s from a different century than the Shelby Cobra
As we drive into the Rocky Mountains along Boulder Creek,
the cool, dry air whips around the Cobra’s cockpit, and we feel like we’re more
outside the car than in. The big steering wheel’s vibration-absorbing wooden
rim is pretty easy to deal with, although the numb brake pedal feels as if it
were connected to drums instead of discs. With buggy-style transverse leaf springs
in its suspension, the Cobra will get to hopping if you lean on it too hard,
yet as Shelby American’s Vince LaViolette (a former NASCAR Winston West racer)
tells us, you just brake in a straight line, roll easily into the corner, and
then hammer the gas when the car is pointed straight.
The Flyin’ Miata Habu V-8 feels as if it’s from a different
century than the Shelby Cobra as it breezes through the corners of the Peak to
Peak Scenic and Historic Byway. But really, this is a Cobra, too, only it’s the
kind of Cobra you’d put together if you had a late-model Mazda MX-5 Miata, a
430-hp Chevrolet LS3 V-8, a Tremec T-56 six-speed manual transmission, and a
Ford 8.8-inch limited-slip differential.
The Habu doesn’t
scare you the way any Cobra does, giving you a composed ride as well as crisp
handling
Just like the Cobra itself (and any tuner car, for that
matter), the Habu sounds like a crime against physics. Yet, not only is the
weight distribution in this Miata hardtop convertible balanced at 52/48 percent
front/rear, but overall weight has gone up only 240 pounds, to 2831 pounds.
Even better, the Habu doesn’t scare you the way any Cobra does, giving you a
composed ride as well as crisp handling. Colorado tuner Flyin’ Miata has been
doing this conversion thing for some time. It shows in this utterly modern
automobile that has the friendly personality of a Miata, only with the dark
soul of a V-8.
If you’ve got your wallet out, see if you have the $69,995
it will take to get a rolling chassis of this Cobra with fiberglass bodywork
from Shelby American ($134,995 for an aluminum body) and then look under the
couch cushions to find the $10,000 to $20,000 or more it’ll take to buy a Ford
V-8 crate engine and get it installed. If you have $42,995, you can fly into
Grand Junction, Colorado, go out to the Flyin’ Miata shop in the middle of the
peach orchard outside of town, and pick up your turnkey Habu V-8 from Keith
Tanner, but only after you send him a used, third-generation Miata (Flyin’ will
also convert your first- or second-gen model).
Either way, you’ll be celebrating the Shelby Cobra, which
defines the whole tuner-car thing, now as then.
