"SUPERSNAKE"
 

This is my story of CSX 3015, and the long lost pictures I took of this
car while I was restoring it. I'm no pro journalist, these are just a few words
from a guy who was, I feel, lucky enough to have been a
part of this COBRA'S automotive history.

        I literally walked into restoring this car, while looking for a job, it was sitting in the open out side of a body shop on the outskirts of
    Granada Hills, Ca. From a distance I wondered if it was a original Cobra due to the fact it had a
    big bubble hood on it. After talking to the shop owner for awhile he asked me if I would be interested in restoring it, having never worked on a Cobra before I was quite interested in taking on the the task. Having been in Can-Am racing in the late sixty's and early seventy's I had seen these cars run hard at the races in their class, but had no personal experience with them. I was about to learn. The owner of the shop had a large staff, but had so much work backed up, he couldn't spare anybody to work on it. I soon found out it would become my sole job.

  One of the first things I did,  was to ask who the owner was, I was told it was song writer Jimmy Webb. He bought the car from Shelby himself,  it was one of two built this way, and as I was
    to find out later, it was the only one left. . That car had been owned by Bill Cosby.as folk lore goes. To try and describe what shape this Cobra
    was in, is something only the first set of pictures can show. The front end had body damage on the lower right, the back of the car was pushed in badly (I was later told how that happened, but I don't
    want to take any heat if the story turns out to be untrue.) The superchargers were gone along with intake, carbs, mounting brackets, top hats, and throttle linkage. This car came with a C-6 auto and that was replaced with a 4-speed top loader.  The carburetion was now a set of Webers. The power brakes (yes! power brakes) did not work, along with a list of other parts that did not function,  fuel
    pumps, rear end cooler pumps, calipers & rotors, windshield wiper transmissions & motor, all
    electric's( the original dash was thrashed and gauges shot), floorboards were trashed, no battery
    box, engine and trunk compartment aluminum skins were a mess. The list goes on,
    I think you get the idea.

 After making an assessment of the Cobra's condition, I really wanted to try and find out what the
  history of this car was. I located the CSX  number and called S.A.A.C. and told them the number. It wasn't long before they called back and asked if I was sure of the CSX number, I told them I was. I was asked if the car had a big bubble scoop on the hood, I told them it did indeed have that type of hood. I was asked if I was sure and told them ("I'm standing here looking at it as we speak") I was then told about the significance of this Cobra.
 
 

 Here are the first group of pictures.

The picture on the right shows the left side of the engine compartment, you can also make out
the horn location. The picture on the right shows the vacuum canister used for the power brakes.
The canister's placement is between the right side wheel housing and foot well box.

The left picture shows the firewall, driver side foot well box, some of the Weber throttle
linkage, voltage regulator, and wire harness. The right picture shows the original plastic
fans and the location of the remote oil filter. you can't tell from this angle, but  the bottom of
the oil cooler intake is smashed in.

This picture is out of  sequence, but I wanted to give the viewers an idea of what the car looked
like while fitting, replacing, and fabricating new parts. Notice the 'Bubble Hood' sitting on the
small block Cobra. Nice brake rotors Huh!

NEW PICTURES ADDED
12/22/02

The original intake and Paxtons were removed and replaced with Weber carburetors. The faded Paxton is one of the originals,
the darker blue Paxton is the new supercharger. These pictures were taken before I located the original cross ram intake. After
many days on the phone I located the original manifold in Sacramento, California. I was test fitting the superchargers on the newly fabricated mounts that I had to make due to the fact that the originals were given away.

In this picture the original intake is now in place, the Jaguar power vacuum units are installed after rebuilding. The coil bracket is just a temporary piece to figure out a  mounting position. The cardboard template on the new supercharger is for the placement of the tensioner bracket and pulley. You can also see in these pictures the new aluminum firewall skin and the top of the new transmission tunnel.

Note:
These pictures are 22 years old
and some are faded.
I am cleaning them up and reworking them
with my Adobe Photoshop.
As soon as I can I will post more pictures.

COME ON BACK