Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 1214 | Page 20

reted 370-hp Ford 289 engines from the Cobras. The engines were slightly
modified to deliver less torque than in the Cobra, due to the Monaco’s lighter
weight (1,400 vs. 2,100 pounds). The chassis were reinforced, extra cooling capacity was added, and the big V8s were bolted to BMC four-speed transaxles built by
Joe Huffaker. In the rush to get to the grid, the exhaust stacks were simply turned
skyward and poked through the rear deck.
Shelby always referred to the cars as Cooper Fords, but the press preferred
“King Cobra.” These cars were a bit rough around the edges, but Shelby and MacDonald had new weapons for a miserly (by race car standards) $8,000 apiece.
FIRST BLOOD

First time out for the King Cobras was at Kent, Washington, in September 1963,
where MacDonald was joined by his more experienced teammate, Bob Holbert.
Holbert was as steady and dependable as MacDonald was wild and aggressive. A
veteran Porsche racer, Holbert had just wrapped up the USRRC Drivers’ Championship after switching to Cobras.
Kent was the first of three money-paying races (unofficially called the Fall Pro
Series) run after the end of the USRRC season. (The Shelby Cobras had won the
1963 USRRC Manufacturers’ Championship, but the King Cobras were finished
too late to compete.) Both cars overheated and retired at Kent, but not before Holbert smashed the lap record.
The opposition was intense, with the new fiberglass-chassised Chaparral II
packing impressive Chevy power and superior aerodynamics. Other hotshots were
the new Huffaker Genies with Ford, Buick or Chevy engines and a handful of Lotus
19s that had been beefed up to take V8 power. The next race was the Los Angeles
Times Grand Prix at Riverside, California, and this time MacDonald ran off and
hid from the field in his blue super snake, winning by more than a lap. The King
Cobra had made good in only its second race.
The last pro race of the year was the San Francisco Examiner Grand Prix at
Laguna Seca, also in California, where MacDonald fought his way through the field
to another victory. The team then weighed sail for Nassau in the Bahamas, where
both King Cobras failed to finish.
At the end of the season, Shelby sold two more Cooper Fords (CM/5/63 and
CM/6/63) to a Canadian team, Comstock Racing, and the future looked bright
for 1964.
A GOOD START

In 1963, Shelby had won the USRRC Championship running his production AC
Cobras, and for 1964 he hoped the lighter, faster King Cobra would carry the
day against the