Cobra III - Lonestar

These black and white photos were taken by Scott Malcomb circa 11-1-67 for Road and Track Magazine. Shelby had Len Bailey construct this prototype 1968 Cobra, originally called the Cobra III in Shelby American internal documents, as a replacement for the 427 Cobra, which Shelby American called the Cobra II. Ford, which owned the Cobra trademark, complained about Shelby's use of the name, so Shelby re-named it the Lonestar.

Len Bailey had his crew construct the car at John Wyer's shop in England. John Horseman drove the car down to the docks for shipment to L.A. The car originally had white interior upholstery and Shelby's crew quickly changed that to black. Also to come were the addition of "ear" scoops on the top of the rear wheelwell quarterpanels to deliver fresh air to the engine compartment.

Len Bailey had been the J.W.E. engineer in charge of the road-going version of the GT-40, the MkIII. The Lonestar was essentially a simplified GT-40 tub with the GT-40 Ford 289/ZF layout, an aluminum Ferrari-like body, GT-40 suspension and Cobra brakes and wheels. In December, 1966 Bailey conducted wind tunnel tests on a 1/4 scale model at the Imperial College wind tunnel and determined a cd of .36 requiring 295 horsepower at 200 mph. with front downforce of 81 lbs. and rear lift of 100 lbs.

A Holley four-barrel carburetor on a 289 motor.

Len Bailey wrote a report for Shelby: "1968 Cobra; Objective: To create a successor to the Shelby Cobra in the same image by a contemporary functional design, with overall performance potential superior to any available vehicle in the world." I found this and a bunch of other Lonestar stuff when Shelby opened up his unused Princeton shop to me in 1973. Because I was not researching a story on the Lonestar, I put everything back where I had found it. There was additionally a very large cardboard box full of GT-40 and Mk IV Ford stuff. As far as I know this material has never surfaced. Len Bailey later sent me his report.

Shelby's crew later placed air intake scoops just behind the side windows. The wheels were GT-40, because Len Bailey had not been able to acquire the Cobra SC Halibrands for which the car had been designed. The car was designed for the U.S. 1968 bumper and headlight height requirements. Shelby told me that the car was impractical because the occupants had to slide over the side sill. The U.S. Customs got into a hassle with Shelby and Al Dowd over import taxes. At about this time, Shelby was probably pretty burned out, and the project was dropped.

I believe that Road and Track printed this for me from a transparancy. I purchased the Lonestar circa 1975 and drove it around West L.A. before I trailered it home to AZ. The car was a bit trashed, but gave every evidence of GT-40-like performance. The car drove right on my 1964 Team Cobra competition 289 trailer. Everyone thought I was crazy.

This ad appeared in Autoweek/Competition Press in October 1968. Shelby had decided to bail on any new Cobra.

This ad appeared in the 1968 November issue of Autoweek/Competition Press. The same photo had already appeared on the December 9, 1967 cover of Autoweek with the heading "New Cobra". The page one story was titled: "Shelby's New Street Cobra -- U.S. Congress Permitting". The text began: "This will be the new Cobra if Congress passes the bill exempting small manufacturers from some of the new standards."

The text in the lower left hand corner reads: "Carroll Shelby's 1969 Lonestar prototype. R. McKee". I can't recall how I acquired this.

This is the Lonestar tub in 2007, the subject of a nut and bolt restoration by Geoff Howard of Danbury, Conn. Geoff has been working on the car for probably ten years, so it can't be that much longer. The front and rear body sections will be fully removable.