Cobra 289 5 Speed Manual Roadster

1965 Shelby Cobra 289 -- Description

For Sale at the St Louis Car Museum is the very first CSX8000 Series "slab-side" Cobra 289 S/R ever produced! This collector car is listed in World Registry of Cobras and GT40s and is fully documented from new, the all-aluminum #CSX8001 comes with a host of paperwork and signed MSO and Certificate of Authenticity from Carroll Shelby himself. This 1965 Shelby Cobra 289 For Sale is powered by a 1965 date-coded 289ci K-code V8, 5-speed Tremec, and 3.54 axle and... is also fitted with hidden air conditioning. A must have for any serious car collector! To find a Cobra For Sale in early slab-side form from which they were born is more difficult today. Shelby American finally acknowledged this fact in 2011 with the introduction to the limited production of 50th Anniversary CSX8000 Series 289ci street versions. They sold quickly, in both fiberglass and hugely expensive aluminum form, to eager buyers and car collectors worldwide. This may have been in part from the determination of the man you will learn about behind this very car, the very first one ever built and acknowledged in the Shelby registry as CSX8001! Many will say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease", and it holds true for Shelby enthusiast, Robert Kennedy, or Phoenix, AZ. He began his efforts in the mid-1990s with pestering Carroll Shelby and the team at Shelby American to build him a 289 cubic inch slab side roadster. Priorities with 427ci orders seemed to dictate the path of the shop, so Mr. Kennedy was left with the answer of "No" many times. So after a trip to the facility in both 1996 & 1997, with a Shelby team ready to redirect his desire to a 427 version instead, he finally decided to leave them an interesting proposition. Payment in full, by check, for a 289ci Street Roadster and a note: "You cash this check, you owe me the car!" To his surprise, the check cleared his account in September 1997, but the tooling for this desired slab side body of his dreams would continue to be placed on hold. Mr. Kennedy would put mounting pressure on Shelby nearly after 2 years of waiting by visiting the workshop. Shelby's team would be in full swing with a fully reinforced tube chassis' for a new line of FIA race cars utilizing the original track savvy tubular triangular chassis improvements of the original Daytona Coupe. With this news, he realized his small block car had yet to even start production. Maintaining utmost composure, Mr. Kennedy was able to convince Carroll Shelby and staff that his paid in full contribution two years earlier should elevate his status to "get in line behind me!" With this agreed acknowledgment, Shelby confessed that they simply didn't have the time to retool the forms to produce the fiberglass slab side body he so badly wanted. Another solution then presented itself, and it would be in the form of an aluminum body at considerably more expense. With Kennedy's insistence, he asked for the body to be made from aluminum instead, promising to have the body fully polished to highlight the endeavor! This would be a great way to highlight the first CSX8000 and bring added buzz to the Shelby community! Carroll agreed and then turned to body craftsman, Michael Kenney, of Hi-Tech Motorsports of Tempe, AZ to reproduce the first hand-formed aluminum "slab-side" 289ci Cobra body for Shelby American. In return, and in order to speed up production, Carroll would offer Kenney one of the latest CSX7000 styles reinforced leaf spring FIA tube chassis' to mock up the body. The very first chassis, CSX8001, was finally underway as an all-aluminum Street Roadster! But its completion wasn't officially celebrated until July 2000. It would then return to Las Vegas, NV for Carroll Shelby's team to finish. With the dream of building his personal 1965 Shelby Cobra finally coming together, Kennedy asked to have the car fitted with a real 1965 solid lifter K-code 289ci engine he had found decades earlier which was saved for this very occasion. It was fit with quad Weber 48IDA downdraft carburetors, Shelby 7-quart aluminum oil pan, remote oil filter & front oil cooler, competition high volume aluminum radiator, Lemans style quick-release gas cap, FIA hood scoop, Stewart Warner instrumentation, headrest seats, chrome bumperettes & roll bar, Talbot-style rearview mirror, 2-piece 17" knock-off FIA style wheels by PS Engineering, and more! With patience came the reality of comfort and modern necessity. Kennedy elected to incorporate a 5-speed Tremec manual transmission and 3.54 rear axle ratio for optimum highway travel on today's roadways. An electric fuel pump, electric cooling fan, and electronic ignition also found their way into the build to enhance the drivability. And as things progressed, the summers in Arizona weren't getting any cooler, so he asked them to discreetly add a modern HVAC system to blow cold air into the foot wells to help stay cool on hot days, along with hidden speakers with audio inputs for music when he wished. Kennedy maintained possession of his prized Cobra Roadster for the next 13 years, using it for mostly for fun and personal enjoyment. It comes with all original build documentation and correspondence in a binder, all service records from day one, and Shelby Certification signed by Carroll Shelby himself identifying this as the first CSX8000-Series roadster, a Certificate of Origin also signed by Carroll Shelby, and an extra set of keys. It is listed the Shelby World Registry of Cobras and GT40's referenced on pages 794-797. It will also be delivered with a complete Haartz Stayfast top and frame, Stayfast cabin tonneau cover, Plexiglas side curtains, removable passenger headrest, spare tire with changing equipment, tool bag with extras, and storage car cover! This 1965 Shelby Cobra 289 For Sale sold in 2015 to an astute collector in England and traveled there with approximate 7,000 miles on the odometer. It now shows 10,046 miles on the odometer.