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VINTAGE: Bob Bondurant Reunited with Daytona
Written by: Bob Golfen   
03/06/2009
Phoenix, Az
 
Veteran racer Bob Bondurant flogged the 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra, which he raced more than 40 years ago, at his racing school in March.(Photo: Bob Golfen) » More Photos
Famed racers Bob Bondurant, Peter Brock and a 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe, which Brock designed and Bondurant helped drive to historic racing victories and track records, were reunited Friday in Arizona for just a little more track time.

With Brock at his side, Bondurant stepped once again into the cockpit of Daytona CSX2601 while a dozen photographers focused on the scene. Bondurant cranked up the roaring V-8, and moments later was performing some very hot laps around the twisting road course at his Bob Bondurant School for High-Performance Driving, just south of Phoenix.

Daytona designer Peter Brock chats with Bob Bondurant as he starts up the Daytona at his driving school near Phoenix. (Photo: Bob Golfen) » More Photos
“It still works,” a grinning Bondurant said after climbing out of the Cobra. “It still has power, and the handling is fantastic. It was so much fun that I didn’t want to come back in.”

The Daytona was one of six streamlined coupes that Carroll Shelby and his cadre of top drivers, including Bondurant, brought to Europe to beat Ferrari. Which they did, for the first time putting an American
manufacturer on the podium in European GT racing.

“It was great to take this, an American car, and beat the Ferraris,” Bondurant recalled.

The special reunion was put together by the Mecum Auction, which will be offering what it calls “the crown jewel of American racing” at its collector-car auction May 13-15 in Indianapolis, Ind.

The Shelby Daytona, restored to original, could receive the highest bid ever paid at auction for an American car, said auction owner Dana Mecum, who attended the event at the Bondurant driving school. The current record is held be another Cobra, Carroll Shelby’s own supercharged Super Snake, which sold for $5.5 million in 2007 at Barrett-Jackson’s January auction in Scottsdale, Az.

“This will definitely set an American record,” Mecum said Friday. “Another Daytona sold privately about three years ago for $9 million. And it didn’t have the racing history of this car.”

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