It's hard to imagine a die-hard Prancing Horse fan watching the clip below without clenching his or her fists. After all, we are dealing with two consecutive generations of Shelby weapons that put quite a dent in Maranello's motorsport aura.
The footage takes us to the Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium, where a Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe battled it out with a Ford GT.
We've seen these exact pair of retro racers battling in the past and, given the history of the two vehicles, we are, most likely, talking about original cars.
The sheer sight of such vehicles being manhandled on the track is enough to keep us on our toes.
Imagine racing around in a contraption built from enough bills to total $7.25 million and you might get close to what's happening with this Shelby Dayton Coupe. This is the value for which an example of the car traded hands back in 2009.
Shelby only built six units of the coupe between 1964 and 1965, with the fixed-roof model improving on the design of the AC Cobra. Its aim? To take on the Ferrari 250 GT in GT racing. This is the car that allowed Shelby to become the first US carmaker to grab an international title - we're talking about the 1965 FIA World Sportscar Championship here.
Why did Shelby stop making the Daytona Cobra Coupe? Simple, because the company moved on to the Ford GT40, which delivered the infamous series of lethal Le Mans blows to the Prancing Horse.
Before you hit the "play" button below, do keep in mind that the battle between US and Maranello will be reignited next year, when the Ford GT racecar enters service. Nevertheless, this will compete in the LM GTE Pro class, as neither the Blue Oval, nor Ferrari, race in the top-tier LMP1 category nowadays.
In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist. Full profile
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