Daytona Coupe rolls again

Peter Brock tells the story of the Daytona Coupe as if it was yesterday. This is the other Peter Brock, who in 1964 when he was still learning to guide a razor across his chin was tapped by Carroll Shelby to design a roofed variant of the iconic Cobra roadster.

Shelby this week announced the company will construct 50 new Daytona Coupes – wearing ID plate numbers 9950 to 9999 – identical in silhouette to the original that Brock sketched on the floor of Carroll’s Venice, California workshop in February 1964.

Not really tribute cars and not really reproductions, according to Shelby marketing chief Gary Schechner, but a continuation of original production with a 50-year intermission.

The Daytona Coupe’s history has evolved into legend, as happens when a small semi-independent race shop like Shelby goes door-to-door with Ford, Chevrolet and Ferrari and drives away with the polished cup and the empty celebratory bottle.

The Daytona Coupe won the 1965 FIA World Sportscar Championship and tallied class wins at Sebring, Daytona, Le Mans, Nurburgring and Reims.

Six Daytona Coupes were raced throughout 1964-65 and all six survive today. Estimated values sit firmly between $US9-12 million, and Schechner says all six original Daytona Coupes will come together on the same patch of tarmac at the Goodwood Revival over September 11-13.

The 50 new Daytona Coupes will be offered in hand-formed aluminium ($US349,000) or in fibreglass ($US179,000) without an engine.

To manoeuvre around legislation, the new coupes cannot be sold as running cars. They will be sold as a ‘specially constructed vehicle’ assembled by Shelby to the point of a rolling chassis with modern Wilwood brakes, a complete body and assembled interior.

The buyer drops in the Ford 289ci V8 and pushes the registration papers through the appropriate channels.

And ruthlessly true to 1964-65 racing technology, a new Daytona Coupe lacks everything related to modern comfort and safety. Life in a 1960s era race car is barely tolerated. There's no air-conditioning, no sound deadening, no airbags and the aluminium bodied coupes don’t even offer door-handles or locks. Radio? Sing loudly.

You unlatch the door by sliding open the small Perspex window and reaching inside. The driver’s seat is slightly angled just like the original car's, which was profiled around English test driver Ken Miles, who Brock describes as 175cm and 65kg.

Going back to 1964, Brock takes up the story of how all this happened, but if you’re expecting a grand plan with detailed performance objectives and wind tunnel testing, that’s not the story of the Daytona Coupe.

Books have been written quoting many details, but Brock tells the story with style: an American, an Englishman and a New Zealander worked together in a backroom shunned by the team manager and crew members because the Coupe didn’t look like a real race car.

“We built the original Coupe in 90 days and with no money,” says Brock. “And we couldn’t have built it without John Ohlson – ‘it could be spelled sen’ – a New Zealander who was a fantastic fabricator.”

“We started with a roadster chassis (90-inch wheelbase) and had to make the aluminum (sic) body fit all the hard points. The chassis dictated the overall size and form followed function,” remembers Brock.

“I had some aerodynamic research done by the Germans in the 1930, and that’s what I used.”  

Those original templates used to shape the original six Shelby Daytona Coupes have been used again to shape the 50 new Coupes.

“I moved to California to race cars and Carroll Shelby hired me to run his driving school. Carroll knew nothing about my work as a designer with GM until we started on the Daytona Coupe – which was initially called Brock’s Folly by the race team.”

When news in 2006 began to trickle out that Peter Brock (the Australian) had been killed driving a Daytona Coupe in West Australia, Peter Brock’s (the American) family began receiving consolatory emails and phone calls.

“At the time I lived in Washington State (WA), so everyone just assumed it had to be me,” says Brock. “Of course, Peter Brock was far more famous than I am.”