Video | Shelby Cobra - the £200K retro exotic

What on earth would motivate someone to spend £200,000 on a car with no roof, no stereo, no driver aids, an engine so noisy you need ear defenders when driving it and road manners so raw it’ll have your eyes on stalks from the first mile? Join Rory for a ride in the Superformance Cobra CSX10000 to find out!
The Cobra’s origin story starts in the 1960s with a fascinating mash-up of a classic British sports car and Ford-powered American muscle, courtesy of Stetson-wearing Texan racer Carroll Shelby and his dream of an all-conquering sports car for road and track. See the film Le Mans ’66 for more on that back story, and some suitably stirring scenes of Cobras being driven by stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale along the way.

Imported by specialist American car dealer Clive Sutton, the CSX10000 Rory drives here is built by a firm called Superformance, which has been manufacturing Cobra recreations since 1994. While there are many and various Cobra replicas and kits out there built to varying standards these Superformance ones are the only to have the official Shelby endorsement, and are as close as you can get to the hugely valuable racing originals.
Lairy Ford V8 engines have been at the heart of the Cobra story from the very start, this CSX10000 powered by the latest 5.0-litre one from the current Mustang. Modern motor or not, it’s absolutely faithful to the old-school vibe and back to basics traditions, the sound coming from the side exhausts beyond epic and likely to have your speakers or headphones rattling – you’ve been warned! Suffice to say, this ‘modern’ Cobra fully lives up to the car’s mighty reputation and is enough to make any modern supercar look a little boring and sanitised. Once your ears have stopped ringing if you liked the video be sure to let Rory know, join him in the comments thread and if you haven’t done so already subscribe to the channel for more!