One of the most sought-after racecars from the ’60s has surfaced in the middle of a bizarre ownership battle. The first Cobra Daytona Coupe, CSX2287, was completed in 1964 and enjoyed two years of racing success before being sold into private ownership and eventually disappearing for some 35 years.
Photo: Dave Friedman
CSX2287 was completed just in time to compete in the 1964 24-Hours of Daytona where it led until a pit lane fire sidelined the car. Later that year at Sebring, CSX2287 finished fourth overall and first in the GT class at the hands of Dave McDonald and Al Holbert. At Le Mans that year, the coupe led the GT class until drivers Neerpasch and Amon were disqualified for a questionable pit stop infraction. The car went on to race at Rheims, Goodwood and the Tour de France in ’64, driven by notables such as Phil Hill, Innes Ireland and Graham Hill. The following year, CSX2287 made a return appearance in the 24-Hours of LeMans but did not finish. The car was subsequently retired with the exception of a trip to Bonneville in 1965, where Craig Breedlove and Bobby Tatroe set 23 national and international speed records.
In December 1965, Shelby American sold the car to Jim Russell of Russkit model fame, who subsequently sold the coupe to record producer Phil Spector in 1966. Spector received so many speeding tickets in ’66 that he sold the car to a John O’Hara in early ’67. As a result of a divorce settlement, the Cobra then passed to O’Hara’s wife Donna. From here, the story takes a bizare twist.
Mrs. O’Hara then placed the car in storage and refused any subsequent offers to discuss or purchase the car. The condition and whereabouts of CSX2287 became unknown until Oct 22, 2000. On that date, Fullerton, California, police responding to a report of a fire under a bridge abutment, found a woman who had doused herself in gasoline and lit herself on fire in an attempted suicide. Severely burned, the woman refused to identify herself and ultimately died 15 hours later. It took police investigators a month to identify the body as that of Donna O’Hara.
Upon Donna O’Hara’s death, Dorothy Brand, the deceased’s mother, had made arrangements to sell the car to Martin Eyears for $3 million. Eyears subsequently sold the car to Dr. Fredrick Simeone, a prominent East Coast collector, for $3.75 million. However, at this point, a friend of Mrs. O’Hara’s named Kurt Goss came forward to state that Mrs. O’Hara had given him the car as a gift just before her death. He provided a signed DMV transfer of ownership slip, which has since been refuted by family members as having been blank and taken without permission. Goss then filed a lawsuit claiming that the car was his and named both Eyears and Simeone in the suit. To make matters even worse, court documents show that Mrs. Brand has already given to charity or spent over $1 million of the money received for the originally disputed sale! As you can probably guess by now, the question of who owns one of the most significant of all Shelby Cobras will now be decided by a California court.
