This ClassicCars.com Marketplace featured listing is a 1965 Shelby Daytona Coupe (Factory Five reproduction) for sale in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The Shelby is the legendary race car that you can’t afford. On the other hand, this is refined, modern, and street-legal version of the same car from Factory Five Racing, which is the next best thing.
As the story goes, Carroll Shelby wanted to beat Ferrari badly. But, the Shelby Cobra roadster, as good as it was, couldn’t do the job. Without a roof, the aerodynamics kept the top speed to just 157 miles per hour, where the Ferraris 250 GTOs were able to hit 186. This issue sparked the birth of the Daytona Coupe.
The first racer of the original six Daytona Coupes came out of Shelby’s shop in Venice, California. This car, known as CSX2287, proved to be wildly successful as driven by top racers, like Dan Gurney, Bob Bondurant, and Craig Breedlove.
GT class first place wins for Shelby came at the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring (fourth place overall) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (fourth place overall), plus the 1965 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Nürburgring 1000 km. If that wasn’t enough, the Shelby Daytona Coupe pulled off an unbelievable 25 land speed records at Bonneville in the same year.
Perhaps in some ways the life of the very first Daytona after racing was more curious. The first 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe was sold to Jim Russell of slot car fame, for roughly $4,000, as lore has it. The car then found its way into the hands of Phil Spector, who managed to rack up speeding tickets galore on the streets of So Cal (btw, this was not a street legal car). On advice from his lawyer, Phil Spector sold it. The Shelby Daytona Coupe CSX2287 then disappeared.
Due to the tragic suicide of the owner (by burning herself alive), Donna O’Hara, the reclusive Shelby emerged out from nearly thirty years of storage. Donna’s mother sold it to car collector, Dr. Frederick A. Simeone, and it now resides in the Simeone Foundation Museum in Philadelphia, PA.
Today, the estimated value is $4,000,000.
The Factory Five reproduction is vibrant with Indigo Blue paint and contrasting Wimbledon White stripes as applied by painter extraordinaire, Jeff “Da Bat” Miller of Factory Five Racing. This only has 150 miles on the odometer since completion.
As sweet as this looks, it does fulfill its raw, back to the basics, mission in life. A 302 bored out unleashes 370-horsepower. This also benefits from an Edelbrock 600 CFM 4-bbl carburetor, Competition Cams aluminum roller rockers, Edelbrock Performer RPM dual-plane aluminum intake, Centerforce clutch, Super Duty T5 transmission, Vintage Wheels FIA pin-drive wheels new Nitto drag tires. FFR 3-link rear suspension with adjustable pinion angle, tubular lower control arms, rod-end adjustable upper trailing arm, Koni coil-over shocks and springs & panhard bar, and much, much more.
This might not be a museum piece, but this 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe just might be the king of the road.
To view the listing on ClassicCars.com, click here.
