It’s not every day that you get to ride in a car with the guy who designed it. In fact, that’ll probably never happen for the vast majority of us, and certainly not in a vehicle so noteworthy as the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. But the folks at Hagerty recently found themselves in that exact situation, and fortunately they brought along a camera or two to capture the rare encounter.
The designer in question, as you might have guessed by now, is Peter Brock. Having played a central role in designing the original Corvette Sting Ray, Brock was brought on board at Shelby at a crucial time. The Cobra roadster had just about reached the limit of its development with its original bodywork, and to get it to go any faster, it needed a significant improvement in aerodynamics. Enter Peter Brock, and the rest, as they say, is history – and an interesting bit of it, at that.
These days, original Daytona Coupes can sell for tens of millions, accelerating well past the point that even a legend like Brock can afford. Fortunately, there are plenty of replica manufacturers keeping his design alive (and soon they’ll be able to sell them here in America as turn-key vehicles instead of kits). Brock’s own was made by Superformance out of South Africa, which is one of the leaders in the field – and which gets a considerable stamp of approval from the designer himself as he’s driving one around.
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