Shelby Shows Continuation Daytona Coupe

Ah, the Shelby Daytona Coupe. Impressive car, no matter how you slice it. Fast, attractive, and, until recently very, very expensive to acquire. They don't come onto the market very often, and when they do, the price is somewhere between "your right hand" and "your first born". Reproductions? Yeah, you could, but there seems to be a better option.

It looks like Carroll Shelby himself is set to start a production run of "continuation" cars (as they're called in the business), and they spec out rather nice. There are already a few repro versions of the coupe out there, and some of them are quite well done (the Brock Coupe, most notably), but this is the only version that will have Shelby's imprature on it.

Coming from Shelby Distribution USA, the CSX 9000 Series Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe Mk2 will feature all of the stuff that made the original so desirable plus a variety of upgrades over its predecessors.

The upgrades will include such niceties as a sturdier chassis, stiffened suspension (both front and rear), new 18-inch alloy wheels (although I like the original Hallibrand knock-offs better), and external door handles, something that the originals lacked.

The upgrades continue inside as well. There's more cabin space for passengers, better seats and, not surprisingly, air conditioning. These guys could get fantastically hot inside, so AC (something I would normally balk at) probably falls into the category of must have. Hopefully there's also lots of sound deadening material too, because these things are NOISY inside.

And here's the best part: You get your choice of body materials. For $89,000 you can get a fiberglass body Daytona Coupe Mk2 and for $195,000, you can get one in aluminum. Naturally, I'll take aluminum.

"A sports car with the heritage and image of the Coupe begged for improvements and new features to make it a worthy contender in the market in which it already is one of the most sought-after contenders,” says Lance Stander, president of Shelby Distribution USA, and who am I to argue.

Now, where did I put that lottery ticket?

Source: TopSpeed. Photos From TopSpeed and Flickr users cosmic_spanner and dwstucke.