We drove Miss Daisy, a V10-powered Cobra concept for the new millennium, a few years ago for Classic Motorsports. This past June, we reported that the car would be crossing the block at Mecum’s Monterey sale.
Sure, the concept never made it to production, but the unique project–overseen by Carroll Shelby himself–sold for $2,640,000. To put that into perspective, …
A normal Cobra is now worth a million bucks, more or less. I wondered how this one would compare. Now we know.
Kind of like a dumber, uglier version of the Shelby Series 1
All the same, it would have been an interesting production vehicle.
David S. Wallens said:A normal Cobra is now worth a million bucks, more or less. I wondered how this one would compare. Now we know.
Now I feel even worse that I opted not to come up with the asking price of $20K for a 289 Cobra race car back in the day......
wspohn said:David S. Wallens said:A normal Cobra is now worth a million bucks, more or less. I wondered how this one would compare. Now we know.
Now I feel even worse that I opted not to come up with the asking price of $20K for a 289 Cobra race car back in the day......
Would you believe a running and driving 427 Cobra for $8,500 in 1974?
You remember, "Arab oil embargo" days.
Tis true, and I was only $8,000 short!
Tell me another half mil for the F40 isn't a bargain comparatively.
wspohn said:David S. Wallens said:A normal Cobra is now worth a million bucks, more or less. I wondered how this one would compare. Now we know.
Now I feel even worse that I opted not to come up with the asking price of $20K for a 289 Cobra race car back in the day......
A racing buddy of ours--pretty famous--was once telling us a story about his Cobra ownership. I'm sure I'll get the facts a little off, but the basic gist: Back in the day, he bought a Cobra for like $6000, raced it and then sold it for $6500--and he was a genius for making money on a race car.
tuna55 said:Kind of like a dumber, uglier version of the Shelby Series 1
All the same, it would have been an interesting production vehicle.
I don't think Daisy is ugly. I kinda dig it. Now those Series 1 cars....
I think this is much nicer than the Series 1. I can't think of anything about the Series 1 that I would prefer over this.
To each his own. I think this looks way more "Cobra revisted" than the OP concept. I know they weren't great cars, and had lots of small manufacturer teething issues, but aestetically only, the SS1 is way prettier to me.
The front wheels on the Series 1 just don't properly sit inside the wheel well. It looks like my attempt at drawing a modern Cobra. (There, I said it.)
David S. Wallens said:The front wheels on the Series 1 just don't properly sit inside the wheel well. It looks like my attempt at drawing a modern Cobra. (There, I said it.)
I acknowledge this. It's definitely a bit off. In my opinion, less off than Daisy. In reality I would probably kick both out of bed, because neither one is really a car you can use. If I was pouring tons into something I wanted as a car I would still start with SS1 though. Ironically, fixing either one to make it right would ruin any value it had.
Really, the problem with both cars is that you are trying to make a "modern" version of a classic design. And trying to hard to do that. Shelby was trying to recreate lightning, and Ford was just trying to be Shelby (and Carroll was kept very much in the loop for Daisy). Both suffered from design trends at the time being forced onto a classic.
It would have been interesting to see how Daisy would have progressed into production- but if I recall the timing, it would have been this vs. the first GT. And the GT won out.
alfadriver said:Really, the problem with both cars is that you are trying to make a "modern" version of a classic design. And trying to hard to do that. Shelby was trying to recreate lightning, and Ford was just trying to be Shelby (and Carroll was kept very much in the loop for Daisy). Both suffered from design trends at the time being forced onto a classic.
It would have been interesting to see how Daisy would have progressed into production- but if I recall the timing, it would have been this vs. the first GT. And the GT won out.
Interestingly enough, just like the original Cobra coupe.
I thought the whole point of Daisy was to re-use a bunch of GT engineering and maybe have something to sell in a bit greater volume. Agreed that both cars seem a bit dated in appearance. What's funny is how the Thunderbird that came out around that same time still seems kind of as fresh as it did when it came out.
Series 1 looks like a fat goldfish that got out of the bowl. Daisy looks somewhat flattened.
pres589 (djronnebaum) said:Series 1 looks like a fat goldfish that got out of the bowl. Daisy looks somewhat flattened.
Never thought about either but, yeah, you're right.
pres589 (djronnebaum) said:I thought the whole point of Daisy was to re-use a bunch of GT engineering and maybe have something to sell in a bit greater volume. Agreed that both cars seem a bit dated in appearance. What's funny is how the Thunderbird that came out around that same time still seems kind of as fresh as it did when it came out.
Series 1 looks like a fat goldfish that got out of the bowl. Daisy looks somewhat flattened.
I don't think that is what happened- the cars are so very different in every aspect than perhaps some suspension, nothing could have been carried over. Mid engine supercharged 4V V8 vs. a front engine unique 4V V10....
As for the "final" design- seeing both the Tbird and the GT- I would have expected it to be less modern and more classis. But we will never know.
Hey alfa, not to be a know-it-all about Ford product development to you (of all people) but it seems like there's a lot of GT happening in Daisy per articles like this;
https://monthly.mecum.com/2021/06/22/project-codename-daisy/
Each is fairly clumsy, although Daisy is clumsy in a refreshingly different way.
And the GR-1 was easily the best of any of them...
In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :
the way I read that is that they shared the suspension, but other than that- nothing else.
Yea, they used the same aluminum extrusions for the chassis, but that's like saying they used the same tubes for a space frame. The design was so different that the process would be completely different. And the "same process" would be just like welding the tubes. But the locations of the bonding is completely different.
The only other thing they could have shared would be the transaxle- and I just don't know what was in the GT.
alfadriver said:- but if I recall the timing, it would have been this vs. the first GT. And the GT won out.
The GT concept was unveiled at the 2002 NAIAS. The first models went down the assembly line in 2004 as 05MY cars. Daisy was unveiled at the 2004 NAIAS.
Not sure what happened behind the scenes, but it seems almost certain that the GT had at least been given the green light for production by the time Daisy was revealed to the public.
In reply to STM317 :
Right, but the two cars would share the same market. I have no idea what prompted Daisy to be made relative to the GT- the only think I can think of is a place to put the 4V V10. Although, at the time, a far better place would have been the Trophy Truck we were "sponsoring". I think the rules would have allowed that at the time.
It's the same trans between GT and Daisy. Some structure, seems like a lot of suspension, I would guess steering and brakes. I have a hunch that, were it to go into production, other systems might have been shared. Hard to know for sure.
I really think it was Ford's attempt to have another halo car in production re-using engineering and production aspects already created and proven on the GT. More bang for an already spent buck.
In reply to alfadriver :
As an outsider, looking at the timeline I'd guess Daisy was intended to be a GT replacement as the retro halo car. If they were only planning a couple of years of GT production, they could use that time to develop Daisy as the next halo car in line and keep the money and publicity going a bit longer.
I also think that era simply had a lot of flexing from car companies. VW was doing all sorts of wild things. Nissan brought the Z back. Ford's SVT group was in its heyday. Chrysler had Prowlers around. Everybody was doing unique things to flex engineering and design chops.
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