Carroll Shelby's Cobra is almost mythical among muscle car enthusiasts. Built by the Ford Motor Company, the first Cobra racing car blew through the racing world like a breath of fresh air. The prototype race car had less than 275 horsepower to draw on from its modified Ford 260 engine, but it left Corvette Stingrays it was designed to beat nearly a mile behind driver Billy Krause's tail lights. Only the failure of a rear suspension part kept Krause from winning the 1962 race in Riverside, California.

Shelby set his sights on the world famous Ferrari next, pitting his fastback Daytona Coupe in the GT championship. Attaining speeds of up to 180 miles per hour, this incarnation of the Shelby Cobra roadster was running 30 mph faster then the roadsters it was up against. Ferrari stopped Shelby in his tracks by maneuvering to have the last race cancelled, allowing themselves a white-knuckle Championship win.

With the advent of the 427 engine, the Shelby Cobra racing cars began to have serious problems in their handling and with durability. Light and unbelievably fast, the deadly handling of the Cobras scared even seasoned drivers. 

While Cobras did eventually race to victory – a Shelby Cobra driven by Jack Sears and Peter Bolton on the M1 Motorway managed to hit 186 mph if calculations are correct. This did not, as it is apocryphally believed, lead the British government to impose a speed limit of 70 mph on their motorways. 

Unfortunately, the Shelby Cobra was not a successful financial investment for Ford and Shelby's company, AC Cars, closed in 1984, selling the rights to the name to a Scottish company called Autokraft owned by Brian A. Angliss, who manufactured replica cars and also sold Cobra parts. A lawsuit in Los Angeles, filed by Carroll Shelby, returned all rights to the name Cobra to its original creator. 

The most legendary of all Cobras, the 427 had an extremely limited run of only two – one for Carroll Shelby and one for comedian Bill Cosby. Cosby returned the car almost immediately because it was so hard to handle. It was sold to Tony Maxey in Van Ness, California, who also could not handle the car and promptly drove it off of a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean.