A few weeks back, our Car of the Week was the last Cobra made, CSX3360. I saw 3360 at Amelia Island in 2011. Our trip to Amelia Island this year gave us a look at another great Cobra. This is CSX2001, which is actually the 1st production Cobra. The interesting thing about this car was about 10 years ago, a good friend and neighbor stopped by with his Uncle Ed from California. We sat out on my patio and talked nonsense for a while till we got around to cars which doesn’t take too long for car guys. Anyways, Uncle Ed goes on a tangent about racing Ferrari’s, Porsche’s and Cobra’s. He then goes on to claim having the 1st Cobras ever made, and on and on. He then goes on to telling us that he drove the first Cobra to race at LeMans, and he owned both cars there that year. His nephew didn’t know any of this, and really wasn’t aware of the magnitude of these claims. I though it was very well constructed piece of BS until I realized he knew too much and knew it too well. I excused myself to use the bathroom and decided to take a couple of books from my den with me. This guy drove some Ferrari’s and Porsche’s alright, 250 TR’s, 500 TR’s, The 1st 250 GTO, 550 RS Spyder, 718 RSK, 250 SWB, and on and on!
Well, Uncle Ed turned out to be Ed Hugus who bought the 1st batch of cars from Carroll Shelby that was produced which included CSX2001 and quickly sold it at his dealership, the 1st Cobra dealership in the world Ed Hugus’ European Cars in Pittsburgh, PA. The 1st owner didn’t keep in long and traded the car back in to Ed Hugus who sold it again. The car then found it’s way to Europe and was aggressively campaigned. This car went on to upgraded to 1964 racing specs which included larger Halibrand wheels, a 289 with Webers, body modifications and rack and pinion steering.
Here’s a PDF file that I found online that tells the rest of this cars great history.
