HomeCar CultureShelby ‘Cobra Caravan’ reunited as GT350s join continuation cars  

Shelby ‘Cobra Caravan’ reunited as GT350s join continuation cars  

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Shelby American’s original Cobra Caravan was launched by Carroll Shelby to honor winning the Manufacturer’s Championship in 1965, with all four of the Ford-powered performance products – Shelby Cobra, Shelby Cobra Daytona, GT40 and Mustang GT350 – on a nationwide tour.

The caravan has been reborn, in a way, under the new alliance between Shelby Legendary Cars, the distributor of continuation Cobras, Daytonas and GT40s, and the Original Venice Crew, which is building a limited number of Shelby GT350 competition models.

Shelby Mustang GT350s are being built by the Original Venice Crew | OVC

Under the agreement, the Mustang Shelby GT350s will be offered at Legendary’s main showroom in Irvine, California, bringing the quartet of ‘60s icons together once again.

The agreement also means that the Cobra experts at OVC will be available to install powertrains into the Legendary cars, which are sold complete except for engines and transmissions. The Original Venice Crew was originated to produce the high-performance Mustangs by Ted Sutton, Peter Brock and Jim Marietta, who were key members of Carroll Shelby’s original race- and sports-car company in Venice, California.

Shelby
Cobra Daytona coupes are also Shelby Legendary continuation cars

 “The original Cobra Caravan, which Carroll launched to commemorate the Manufacturer’s Championship win in 1965, included a GT40, Daytona Coupe, Cobra and Shelby Mustang,” Marietta, CEO of the Original Venice Crew, said in a news release. “With the addition of our Shelby GT350 comp model to the Shelby Legendary Cars showroom, the Caravan, so to speak, is again complete. And we couldn’t be happier in our involvement with the continuation Cobras.”

The Shelby Cobras and Daytona Coupes sold by Shelby Legendary Cars are official products that feature continuation CSX serial numbers and are registered in the Shelby Register.

Shelby
The 50th anniversary Ford GT40 replica

 “We’ve been extremely proud to offer Carroll Shelby’s iconic Cobra- and GT40-based motorcars,” Lance Stander, CEO of Shelby Legendary Cars, said in the release. “By adding the OVC Shelby GT350 to our showroom, our motorsport menu is that much more visceral.

“Whether you recall this historic era, or simply want to recapture that time and place in your garage, the addition of OVC’s Mustang completes the historic picture, while significantly expanding our offering of cars.”  

For information about Shelby Legendary Cars, visit the company website.  For information about the Original Venice Crew, visit the OVC website

Bob Golfen
Bob Golfen
Bob Golfen is a longtime automotive writer and editor, focusing on new vehicles, collector cars, car culture and the automotive lifestyle. He is the former automotive writer and editor for The Arizona Republic and SPEED.com, the website for the SPEED motorsports channel. He has written free-lance articles for a number of publications, including Autoweek, The New York Times and Barrett-Jackson auction catalogs. A collector car enthusiast with a wide range of knowledge about the old cars that we all love and desire, Bob enjoys tinkering with archaic machinery. His current obsession is a 1962 Porsche 356 Super coupe.

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