People · Bob Bondurant · Chapter 3

Shelby's Cobra

Le Mans, France — June 1964

There is an old rule about Carroll Shelby: he did not hire cars, he hired people. Bondurant had spent five seasons winning almost everything he entered in a Corvette, which made him precisely the kind of man Shelby wanted — someone who had already proved he could win without the best equipment underneath him. Now he was going to get the best equipment.

Bob Bondurant driving an AC Cobra at the Nürburgring in 1964
Bondurant in an AC Cobra at the Nürburgring, 1964, during practice for the 1000 km race — the year he and Dan Gurney won the GT class at Le Mans. Photo: Lothar Spurzem, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

Le Mans, 1964

The Cobra Daytona Coupe was Shelby's answer to a problem: the open Cobra roadster was brutally quick everywhere except a three-and-a-half-mile straight, where Ferrari's coupes simply drove away from it through the air. The Daytona put a proper aerodynamic body on the Cobra's chassis, and it changed everything.

At Le Mans in 1964, paired with Dan Gurney, Bondurant won the GT category and finished fourth overall in the Daytona Coupe. Fourth overall at Le Mans, in a GT car, against prototypes. It is one of the great American results of the era.

The Shelby years

  • Le Mans 1964: GT class win and 4th overall with Dan Gurney, in a Cobra Daytona Coupe
  • 1965: Bondurant and his co-drivers won 7 of 10 races in the World Manufacturers Championship
  • The prize: the first World Manufacturers Championship won by an American manufacturer — taken off Ferrari
  • Also drove for: Ferrari and Eagle — including Formula One

1965: taking it off Ferrari

Then came the season that made history. In 1965, Bondurant and his co-drivers won seven of the ten races in the World Manufacturers Championship in the Cobra Daytona Coupe, and Shelby American took the title — the first time an American manufacturer had won a world championship, and taken directly out of Enzo Ferrari's hands.

There is a neat irony sitting under all of it, and this site is probably the right place to point it out. The Cobra existed because Chevrolet wouldn't sell Carroll Shelby a Corvette chassis. The man who drove it to a world championship had spent the previous five years winning almost every race he entered in a Corvette. Detroit's refusal built the car, and then handed it the perfect driver.

Which makes 1967 the best possible next chapter. Because Bondurant went back.