SNAKE CHARMER
This has to be the most evocative approach to any classic car showroom in the world. Once you’ve been buzzed through the main gates of Brooklands – the world’s first purpose-built banked motor racing circuit – you turn right, along the time-worn concrete that was once the last section of the Finishing Straight. And then, suddenly, you roll onto the bottom of the famous banking, which rises above you in Planet of the Apesstyle dereliction. It’s been disused since 1939 and yet, as you turn right again towards your destination, it’s hard to resist an instinct to flinch against the oncoming spectres of prewar racing cars, the thumping Bentleys, snarling Rileys and buzzing little Austins, that you sense might appear at any minute around the dramatically soaring curve.
Dismiss such foolish fancies, pass beneath the Members’ Bridge and then climb to the right along a muddy track through a wooded section of infield, turning back on yourself as you near the top. You’ve arrived at what used to be the Brooklands members’ restaurant, now home to classic car and AC specialist The Brooklands Motor Company.
THE BROOKLANDS MOTOR CO is the temporary custodian of a 1963 Shelby Cobra Mk1, recently restored by them on behalf of owner John Kent. This isn’t a car with race history or a celebrity owner in its past; it is, however, that increasingly rare thing, a very original early Cobra, the purest expression of Carroll Shelby’s vision to slot a muscular Ford V8 into a handcrafted European sports car body and chassis.
‘This car is that increasingly rare thing, a very original early Cobra, the purest expression of Carroll Shelby’s vision’
Back in 2006, I as a columnist. It’s often said of us Brits of a certain age that we can remember exactly what we were doing when Princess Diana died – well, I can recall how I was tinkering with one of the old cars in my workshop when the phone rang and I picked it up to hear that famous Texan drawl and the words, ‘Hey, Mark, it’s Carroll Shelby…’ Carroll would prove to be an excellent columnist for the next 2½ years and, of course, he talked about the Cobra along the way. So let’s hear his own words from 40 of how the project began.
