Gunze Cobra Daytona Actually 1/25 scale?

[Greg Myers]

Funny thing here, they made six of these in real life, none of them were the same.

[waynehulsey]

Looked up a bit of info on building the coupes. In the Wallace Wyss book "Shelby's Wildlife", the first was build in the Shelby shop. Then according to Phil Remington, that 'at least 2 were build in Italy and at least 2 were build in England'. He (Remington) further said he was send to Italy to supervise and that the cars were never right and parts had to be constantly reworked. That the roofs never did come out the same and the 2 cars being build at that time were always a few mph slower. The second coupe was build in England and was the one debuted at Le Mans with Gurney and Bondurant driving. According to the Michael Shoen  (who owned the coupe that Bob Peeples measured) book 'The Cobra-Ferrari Wars' the car hadn't turned a wheel under power until it was in France. The first car from what I've heard had a slightly more vertical windshield which made the roof a bit higher. Then as both books commented as soon as the cars got on the track, modifications were started, different scoops, etc,. Seen one photo with slight wheel well flares added to it towards the end of the season. 

Guess I need to reread both books and a couple of others I have (wished I had the Daytona Coupe book, 100 bucks when new and heard as much as a 1000 dollars being asked for it now). If nothing else to figure out were #6 was build. Think it was in the Shelby shops, but no verification.

[Greg Myers]

Just checked Amazon the other day, The Daytona book is up to $1300 

[Greg Myers]

[Greg Myers]

My Cobra book list ,Just the top, there are many others.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R3HOPU136F8IRG/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full

[Ace-Garageguy]

Funny thing here, they made six of these in real life, none of them were the same.

Yeah, but the dimensions didn't vary by several INCHES from car to car. On old coachbuilt bodies, it's very common for cars to not be entirely symmetrical, and for fractions-of-an-inch variances to creep in, even for scoops and other minor details to move from car to car. But every car in a production run of the same nominal vehicle from the same coachbuilder at the same time in history will usually  be very close to the others in major dimensions.

Even "production" vehicles will have symmetry problems. The deTomaso Pantera, for instance, is somewhat different side to side. The first one I did metalwork on, I tried to copy the good side's dimensions exactly as I repaired the other side. No way the sheetmetal wanted to go back into that shape. That's when I got the bright idea to look at a previously undamaged car. Sure enough, there were measurable differences in the LH and RH quarter panels...and these are panels that are built up of machine-stamped sections, not entirely hand-fabricated panels like on the Cobras, where irregularities are much more liable to be present

[Greg Myers]

But we're not talking production vehicles here.These are totally hand fabricated and by more than one shop in two different countries.

 Read Wayns post, or better yet the Daytona Book.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Greg Myers

[Ace-Garageguy]

But we're not talking production vehicles here.These are totally hand fabricated and by more than one shop in two different countries.

 Read Wayns post, or better yet the Daytona Book.

I'll probably not be paying $1300 for a book on a car I'll most likely never even see in the flesh. If I can't or haven't driven one, I just don't care that much.

I DO have a stack of books on the Cobra roadsters and the GT40, however, still occasionally get my hands on one.

And I STILL doubt there were differences of SEVERAL INCHES among the cars...unless it was for aerodynamic or other valid engineering reasons, as the cars were developed.

The fact is, the "1/25" scale model in the above photographs appears to be 1/24 scale in width, 1/25 in length.

As the cars were built on the large-tube Cobra roadster chassis, differences in width would rationally only crop up in places like fenders widened to accommodate wider rubber...like the GT40 cars...not in the width at the sills.

But there are many many more experts on this particular car here than I would have imagined, and I will defer to their overwhelmingly superior knowledge.

Also please note I SAID :" On old coachbuilt bodies, it's very common for cars to not be entirely symmetrical, and for fractions-of-an-inch variances to creep in, even for scoops and other minor details to move from car to car. But every car in a production run of the same nominal vehicle from the same coachbuilder at the same time in history will usually be very close to the others in major dimensions."

I clarified my statement with the phrase "every car in a production run of the same nominal vehicle from the same coachbuilder at the same time in history will usually  be very close to the others in major dimensions."

A production run can be only 5 vehicles. The "nominal vehicle" means Cobra Daytona, but the other clarifiers "from the same coachbuilder" and "at the same time in history" already accommodate the fact that all the cars weren't built at the same place OR time.

I don't quite understand what you want to argue about.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy

[waynehulsey]

Correction and additional information. Anymore am careful with the Wyss book, since it was a really early book on Cobras and he was a real Shelby fan boy meaning that over the years more information has surfaced and from other sources. Was going through a couple of more books from England: AC Cobra by Brian Laban and AC (Shelby) Cobra by E. Wilson McComb. The first car was put together at Shelby with the metalwork on the body done by California Metal Shaping. It was build up on a chassis from a wrecked 260 car and had started pretty much as a side project for Pete Brock and Ken Miles. The 2nd car was finished in England but was the first Italian build body. When the coachbuilder there started on it they only had some drawings and the frame. As an aside they were a company that deTomaso used and he referred Shelby to them. The first chassis they bodied had one of the body hoops put on wrong at Shelby and was 1 inch plus higher then it was supposed to be. The Italians just adjusted the roof to fit assuming it was a running change on the chassis. So when Remington got there it was pretty completed so even with trying to 'fix' it, it still was taller. So it was the high roof one which worked out since Gurney was going to be driving it and he could barely fit in the regular roof car. For that reason, it became his assigned car. Even though 3 different coachbuilders did bodies they were working off of a body buck. And as Bill has said, they would be some fractional variances, but not 3 or 4 inch differences. Lot of changes were made during the racing life, but they were more with scoops, vents, etc. not the basic body shell.

The Laban book is really interesting since its told from the AC Cars standpoint and would say the author is not a Shelby fan boy. Has some good photos and information on the coupe that AC build and later versions build by AC for the GB and Euro market.