The first 289-powered Daytona Coupe was built at Shelby's California facility and trucked to Riverside Raceway, where it was instantly 20-mph faster on the long straight than the Cobra roadster. More importantly, with it's strong Ford V-8 doing the pulling out of corners, it was potentially quicker than the Ferrari GTOs, even though the Ferraris had a higher top speed.
Shelby built a total of six Daytona Coupes (with much of the construction subcontracted), and they were intimidating enough during the '64 racing season that Enzo Ferrari decided that his championship-winning factory team didn't need to participate in the '65 season.
During 1965, the Daytona Coupes thoroughly dominated the GT class, winning their class in six of the eight major races and challenging the more exotic prototype racers (where Ford's own GT40 was running) on occasion. However, it didn't win at Le Mans, with four of the five entered Daytonas dropping out and the fifth finishing eighth overall and second in GT. The 1965 FIA World GT Championship was Shelby's.
The Daytona Coupe project was abruptly dropped when Ford asked Shelby to take over much of its floundering GT40 program, but the six Daytona Coupes are still clearly the greatest Shelby products of all time.Taste O' Trivia
[Photos 116-0401.SCUP 2A through 2G on disc. Coded in text.]* The Corvette's first appearance in competition with factory backing was at Daytona Speedweeks in February 1956. Among those hired to drive the Corvettes was Betty Skelton who piloted her '56 Corvette to a 137.773 mph trap speed. [2A]
* This '55 Lincoln Futura concept vehicle would be rebuilt as TV's Batmobile in 1966. [2B]
* On September 3, 2003, Zippo made its 400 millionth lighter since starting production in 1933. [2C]
* Chevrolet first used its famed "SS" model designation with this '57 Corvette SS concept car. However, there has never been a Corvette SS production vehicle. [2D]
* The '76 Thunderbird, at 225.7 inches, is tied with the '78 LTD station wagon as the longest car ever sold by the Ford Motor Division. [2E]
* 2004 is the 20th anniversary of the Chrysler minivan. Celebrate accordingly. [2F]
* There's no good piece of trivia to go with this, but this photo of the legendary Jim Clark skipping a Lotus Cortina around a racetrack in the early '60s is just wicked sick. [2G]
0405 H/ONote to Tom D. - I pulled SCUP 3 and 4A through MBeat 'Em Again[Photos 116-0504.SCUP 5 on disc]One of the great stories in Hot Wheels collecting lore (well, maybe not "great") is that the Hot Wheels version of the '68 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray went on sale before the actual car did at dealers. Following in that tradition, Mattel already has a 11/418th scale version of the new '05 Corvette C6 on sale at toy retailers planet-wide for about $20. Mattel, at least this time, had help from GM, who supplied the toy company with the car's design months before it was unveiled at the 2K4 Detroit Auto Show.
Based on this, Primedia is in discussion with Mattel to produce a 11/418th scale version of the Dec. '04 issue of Car Craft. In that spirit, it's expected that members of the CC staff will work for 11/418th their normal salary. And we promise to give 11/418th our normal effort putting it out.
Here's the inevitable Web link: www.hotwheels.com.
Straight Scoop BookshelfCorvette Thunder, 50 years of Corvette Racing, 1953-2003[Photos 116-0504.SCUP 6 on disc]Racing improves the breed, a fact proven out by the likes of legendary car-builders like Enzo Ferrari, Ferry Porsche, and of course, Zora Arkus-Duntov. For Corvette, had not Duntov seen the merits of racing to aid in the launch of the new Chevrolet car line, clearly we would not be celebrating 51 years of Corvette production or the introduction of the new C6 set to reach showrooms this coming fall.