Photo: Hillbank Motor Corp
The original mid-1960s Shelby Daytona Coupe was a race car designed to turn heads and shock its competition when it rolled out onto the track. The Shelby Daytona for sale at Hillbank Motor of Irvine, California, definitely still does that, but this particular Daytona had nothing to do with Carrol Shelby or his famed performance division.
Despite its appearance, this Shelby Daytona comes off the assembly line of a small boutique replica car manufacturer called Kirkham Motorsports of Provo, Utah, USA.
Opened in 1994, Kirkham’s goal is not to provide as close to an experience with the original car as possible, but rather to take a classic and iconic body style and take it to its highest logical performance ceiling. The company does this with the Daytona but also the Cobra, and other custom cars that customers pay for them handsomely to modify.
At the heart of this beast is a hand-built Ford 363ci aluminum small-block V8 engine mounted with a Holley double-pumper 4-barrel carburetor and long-tube headers and paired to a Ford C4 automatic transmission with integrated paddle shifters.
A far cry from the big-block V8 the Shelby team originally intended to go racing with, but with a stretchability that the original car could never match. Underneath the floorboards, there’s even more differentiation between the replica and the original racer.
Gone is the antiquated ladder chassis of the old car, in its place is a reinforced chassis with backbone stiffening tubes for much better structural rigidity and on-track performance. It’s all tied together with a set of era-appropriate-looking Goodyear Eagle racing tires.
For a package that’s this iconic looking and with that many modern upgrades, the $285,000 asking price for this beauty not only seems justified, but it’s frankly astonishing that the price isn’t dipping into the half a million mark. It seems that’s a price point reserved for the original Daytona itself.
Opened in 1994, Kirkham’s goal is not to provide as close to an experience with the original car as possible, but rather to take a classic and iconic body style and take it to its highest logical performance ceiling. The company does this with the Daytona but also the Cobra, and other custom cars that customers pay for them handsomely to modify.
At the heart of this beast is a hand-built Ford 363ci aluminum small-block V8 engine mounted with a Holley double-pumper 4-barrel carburetor and long-tube headers and paired to a Ford C4 automatic transmission with integrated paddle shifters.
A far cry from the big-block V8 the Shelby team originally intended to go racing with, but with a stretchability that the original car could never match. Underneath the floorboards, there’s even more differentiation between the replica and the original racer.
Gone is the antiquated ladder chassis of the old car, in its place is a reinforced chassis with backbone stiffening tubes for much better structural rigidity and on-track performance. It’s all tied together with a set of era-appropriate-looking Goodyear Eagle racing tires.
For a package that’s this iconic looking and with that many modern upgrades, the $285,000 asking price for this beauty not only seems justified, but it’s frankly astonishing that the price isn’t dipping into the half a million mark. It seems that’s a price point reserved for the original Daytona itself.
Google News