If there is a guy who can lay claim to some of the coolest products in American automotive history, it is Peter Brock. A designer of amazing repute, he was the youngest person ever hired by the General Motors design department and began his career working with the likes of Bill Mitchell and Harley Earl. He had a hand in the design of the Stingray Corvette, but most will remember him for the world he did with the Carroll Shelby to design what would be known as the Shelby Daytona Coupe.
The need for the coupe came from the fact that the roaster Cobras were not able to achieve the speeds necessary to be 100% competitive in the road racing world. Lithe, fast, and dangerous the Shelby Cobra was the prototypical machine for going fast. On the downside, the open cockpit provided a massive amount of visibility but it was a big hamper at speeds.
This wide ranging conversation tells the story of a young Peter Brock working on a project no one wanted to help on and virtually no one liked at the shop. It was that small time effort that produced a total of less than a dozen Shelby Daytona coupes but the ones that got out there had the awesome visual impact of a super car by the standards of their day. The cars also had the gusto to back up the looks and performed very well on the international stage for the short time they were there.
Beautiful and important machines in the history of American racing, it is fun to hear Brock tell this story.
We’re LOVING this thing!
Thanks for the tip on this video Jay!
heres an ironic thing… the Australian race car driver, Peter Brock (different person) died driving a replica Cobra Daytona….
Late in life, Phil Remington became a good friend of mine and a group of us would get together three or four times a year, often traveling to Goodwood for the Revival.
I was with Phil when Pete introduced the Brock Coupe. It was 2003 at Monterey. Pete thought the world of Phil, which is evidenced in the video. Phil really had a lot of respect for Pete and mentioned to me that Pete proved a lot of people wrong with the Coupe. Phil said that, in the beginning, even he wondered about the viability of the project but said that without it the Cobra project would have terminated pretty quickly. Ford wanted international dominance and the open car could never have achieved that for Ford.
The Brock Coupe is an outstanding car and I remember, distinctly, Phil really liking it when we were at Monterey. We spent a couple of hours with Pete that day and it is an experience I will always remember.