Registration no. 13 COB
Chassis no. 1/ITC (as plated) – in reality re-used frame 'CS 2131
Engine no. 1/ITE (as plated) ME1042
Ex-Martin Colvill, Willment Racing and AC Cars
Goodwood Revival: Collectors' Motor Cars and Automobilia - 13 September 2025, 13:00 BST Chichester, Goodwood
• Based upon the 1963 Le Mans 7th-placed chassis
• One of the most original of all surviving AC/Shelby American Cobras
• Instantly recognizable British Bell & Colvill-liveried Cobra
• Globally eligible for all historic racing events, including Le Mans Classic and 'The Goodwoods'
• Absolutely verified racing history, with multiple wins
• Driven by such racing stars as Anthony Reid, Nicholas Minassian, Willie Green, Mike Wilds and Murray Sheppard
• "...the best handling Cobra I have ever driven...". Anthony Reid,
• A frequent as-original entry in the Goodwood Revival Meeting's RAC TT Celebration race
Bonhams|Cars is privileged to offer one of the best known of the Ford V8-engined Cobra roadsters ever to grace the British racing scene.It is renowned as being the ex-Martin Colvill car, which was campaigned for so long by Martin under the banner of his Bell & Colvill sports car dealership in West Horsley, Surrey.
Through the late 1970s and well into the early-'80s, driven by Colvill, '13 COB' completed more than 100 races. In them it scored 12 outright victories plus 44 class wins, and won the Historic Sports Car Club Classic Sportscar Class A Championship titles in 1978, 1980 and 1981.
The car also amassed the most points in the 1981 and 1985 Aston Martin Owners Club's Inter-Marque Challenge/Championship, and with Martin Colvill at the wheel it set class lap records at Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Oulton Park and Mallory Park.
Today '13 COB' remains one of the most original of all surviving competition AC/Shelby American Cobras, retaining not only the original chassis around which it was first constructed, but also its original body which has survived effectively intact throughout its life and competition career having only ever sustained light body damage which was repaired without resort to much in the way of fresh metal.
Indeed '13 COB' remains a genuinely historic racing artefact in the hands not only of Bell & Colvill but also within those of its most recent owner/racer - for the past twenty years - who has campaigned the car widely not only in the UK but also at several major European venues. At all times this exceptionally well-presented roadster with its hardtop Coupé roof has been, and continues to be, fastidiously maintained to the correct FIA homologation specification and FIA Appendix K regulations, without recourse to non-period modifications. Above all it has become a perennial veteran of the Goodwood Revival and Members' Meetings, and its celebrated international drivers there have included Anthony Reid and Nicholas Minassian.
Cobra '13 COB's provenance has been studied, researched and verified in minute detail by ex-Cobra Registrar Robin Stainer and motoring writer and historian Paul Chudecki, who has also campaigned the car at Goodwood in recent years.
In a staggeringly comprehensive profile of the car, a copy of which accompanies it today, Paul Chudecki explains how its original owner ex-works was British Ford main dealer John Willment. When he was re-equipping his racing division his company advertised several of its competition vehicles - ranging from Formula 1 through the Cobras to racing saloons - for sale in 'Autosport' magazine's issue of January 14, 1966. Alongside the team's immediately recognised machines, such as Cobra Roadster '39PH' and the Willment Cobra Coupe, it offered 'COBRA CHASSIS. New body. 4.2 Ford V8. Rebuild not complete. As is £1,000'.
Studied in detail, this wording is very significant. Only the incomplete car's body is described as new, 'rebuild" as opposed to 'part-built' is significant and the asking price of £1,000 for such an assembly was certainly not inexpensive by 1965-66 standards
It was almost certainly an otherwise unused Roadster body, probably removed from the standard chassis which had been used as the basis of the aerodynamic Willment Coupe. Meanwhile the rolling chassis offered with this incomplete entity has since been confirmed as having an even more intriguing provenance.
Here we should retrace the original history of the AC/Shelby Cobra breed itself. AC Cars Ltd of Thames Ditton had been producing its mouth-watering series of initially AC then Bristol 6-cylinder-engined Ace sports cars since 1953. Based on an original twin-tube ladder-frame chassis with transverse leaf-spring suspension the Ace-Bristols had earned a great reputation in racing and contemporary road rallying.
The AC Ace sold well to America and through the 1950s national SCCA and USAC road-racing produced several drivers of genuine world class. One was Carroll Shelby, the Texan who became a star with the British Aston Martin factory team in 1959, co-driving their Le Mans 24-Hour race-winning DBR1/300. Into 1961, however, Shelby was forced to retire from active race driving due to a heart condition. Always a salesman, he had long cherished the notion of creating a pedigree sports car series of his own.
He had first come to prominence driving a British Allard sports car with American V8 engine by Cadillac, and into 1962 he began to develop the idea of fitting a good-handling British sports car chassis with one of Ford's latest lightweight 3.6-litre 'Windsor' V8 engines. This series had just been launched in the year's Ford Fairlane model. Approaching friends at Ford Detroit he found some support for the idea, since Ford was early in its drive to promote a younger, more dynamic market image.
With such an agreement in principle to supply the engine, Shelby then sought an appropriate British partner with an existing production chassis to suit. Naturally Aston Martin was an initial target but as Paul Chudecki points out they were already struggling to meet market demand for their twin-cam straight-6 engined DB4 model. An approach to Jensen foundered. As he writes: "AC's Ace on the other hand, and already a dominant force on American race tracks, proved to be the perfect candidate".
AC Cars' principals, Charles and Derek Hurlock, were already considering a replacement for the ageing Bristol engine. A Daimler V8 was being considered but on September 8, 1961, the Hurlocks received a letter from Shelby suggesting the Ford tie that he was in a position to broker. The Ford of Britain 2.6-litre 6-cylinder Zephyr engine was already being installed in the latest AC Ace. They used twin-tube chassis frames designed by the company's chief engineer Alan Turner with thicker-wall main frame tubes, 2-inch wider-track suspension and a heavier-duty back axle.
Ford then supplied the Windsor V8 engine in its latest 4.2-litre form. It proved usefully lighter than the Zephyr Six power unit and shorter, allowing it to be mounted further back in the prototype frame than its predecessor, providing 49/51 per cent front/rear weight distribution. This prototype was tested before the engine and gearbox were removed and the car was shipped to Shelby's rented workshop space in hot-rodder Dean Moon's shop at Santa Fe Springs, California.
Carroll Shelby had, meanwhile, secured backing for his notional AC-designed and built 'Cobra' project from seven-time Le Mans competitor and American European Cars company head Ed Hugus. The dealer/driver both ordered and personally financed the Texan's initial AC Cobra production run, which allowed "breathing space" for a finalised deal with Ford to take over funding and guarantee the entire project continuous engine supply. While the true story of the AC/Shelby Cobra has been skewed not just by the passage of time, but very much moreso by the often-creative 'memories' of both Shelby and Hugus it was allegedly the latter who first suggested the AC Ace to the former as a potential platform for his Anglo-American hybrid sports car concept.
In parallel, while the relationship between the two Americans would become first tense, and then fracture into the winter of 1962-63, Hugus prompted the Hurlocks and AC Cars to enter two of the new Cobras at Le Mans that latter year. He paid for suitable modifications to be made to the two cars entered, both to be fitted with detachable, lightweight and aerodynamically efficient hardtops for the relentlessly rapid Le Mans circuit.
Through April/May 1963 Paul Chudecki recounts how one car was readied for the 24-Hour race to be driven by 1957 race winner Ninian Sanderson and Peter Bolton (whose name appears on the original sales invoice for it). The car was painted in AC's handsome shade of 'Dualessence Mist Green' and as race No 3 It rumbled round to finish well, seventh overall and winner of the over-3-litre GT Category. Meanwhile the sister Ed Hugus/Peter Jopp entry was disqualified for having engine oil replenished before the regulation 25 laps racing had been completed. The UK road registration number of the seventh-placed car was '39 PH' and its chassis serial was 'CS 2131'.
That particular Cobra subsequently reappeared for the year's RAC Tourist Trophy race at Goodwood, to be co-driven by Jack Sears/Ken Miles only for it to fail pre-race scrutineering due to newly-fitted front wheels being dangerously close to the steering arms.
It was then acquired by John Willment Automobiles Ltd's racing division for 1964, repainted Monaco Red with white centreline stripes and ran at Easter Monday Goodwood, Goodwood, Oulton Park, Aintree and Silverstone driven by Jack Sears and Australian Frank Gardner.
Frank Gardner was then to co-drive the car with 'Gentleman Jack' in the World Championship-qualifying ADAC 1,000Kms race on the Nürburgring on May 31. However, during practice Frank Gardner crashed heavily at the Flugplatz hump. The car overturned, non-started and was taken back to Willment's Twickenham base for repair. To save time, even though damage to the front end of the frame was relatively light, the chassis was replaced by a new initially left-hand drive frame from the AC production line, which was immediately converted to right-hand drive. This frame replacement subsequently became highly controversial within Cobra circles.
However, the work most notably of Robin Stainer and Paul Chudecki has since established this chassis change as fact. Years later, while under restoration, the chassis adopted for what became '13 COB' - that part-assembled Cobra offered for sale in the January 1966 Willment sale advertisement - was found not only to have pre-November 1963 features but also to bear faint strike marks of a chassis stamp. Under forensic examination those strike marks have proved to read '2131' - the original Le Mans 7th-placed car's frame.
Further investigation revealed surviving traces of its original Le Mans 'Dualessence Mist Green' paintwork on the reverse faces of the scuttle bonnet-catch brackets, and also within the fascia-back wiring harness clips within the car's scuttle.
So, what of '13 COB' as the rebuilt 1966 car? Soon after its sale it was road registered by the Middlesex County Council on August 1, 1967, to former RAF pilot the Hon. Angus Clydesdale of Eaton Square, London W1, later (in 1973) to inherit the title of the Duke of Hamilton & Brandon. Since there were no visible chassis nor engine numbers, the licensing authority accepted '1TC' and '1TE' as being appropriate. These serials remain stamped into '13 COB's right-side (looking forward) scuttle-mounted chassis plate today. Recalling happy licensing times the serials represented 'It's The Chassis' and 'It's The Engine'...
Greater London Council Licensing Branch records for 1975 record how by then the blue-liveried Cobra's road registration was 'TYH 43F'. Following Lord Clydesdale's tenure, in July 1968, the car passed to John R.C. Wimbush of Lullington Manor, Polegate, Sussex, and in September 1968, with the original registration SMX 177F, it was sold - "in a beautiful, deep midnight purple' - for £1,475 to Simon Leak of Windsor, Berkshire. It then acquired in late-1970 the personal registration 'S3000'. In 1971 ownership fell to Trevor Kent of Gerrard's Cross, and after frost damage to the engine into 1972 it was sold to Norman Reeves Motors of Uxbridge, for the owner's son Michael - for whom the period registration 'TYH 43F' was issued.
As Martin Colvill later recalled, the car then passed to an obscure trader who ran it under '100 MWL' registration plates, before part-exchanging it with Bell & Colvill for a used Lotus Elan.
The car was rebuilt for Martin by specialist Emilio Garcia in a workshop behind the West Horsley garage, in collaboration with Autokraft of Brooklands. In December 1975 Martin re-registered the car '13 COB'. In the September 1976 Brighton Speed Trials he made his competition debut in the rebuilt Cobra, then indulged in a series of Goodwood sprints through 1977, before graduating to circuit racing alongside his business partner Bobby Bell who had been competing at that level for many years.
As Paul Chudecki has written: "One of the very first AC Cobras campaigned in historic races, '13 COB' would ultimately become the most raced and most famous Cobra in Great Britain". The car was developed to full race order and between August 1977 and September 1985 Martin completed an incredible 102 of the 107 races entered.
Soon after its final race in his hands, Martin Colvill sold '13 COB' to enthusiast Aidan Mills-Thomas of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. In May 1999 it passed to Chris O'Neill and in 2000 to its current immensely enthusiastic owner, to replace the ex-Jenny Tudor-Owen race modified MGB which he had been racing for many years.
It was in June 2006 that Cobra preparer Nick Green and model expert Steve Monk confirmed that '13 COB's chassis was indeed a pre-November 1963 rack-and-pinion steered chassis as constructed by AC Cars, and that its front suspension tower had been at some time replaced. This fits with repair following Frank Gardner's 1964 Nürburgring accident and it was during a December 2011-March 2012 rebuild that specialist preparer Peter Barnard found a discernible 'CS' chassis prefix stamping "...and what looked like a '2' " on the stripped chassis frame's right-front leg. Paul Chudecki subsequently lists frame modifications as recommended by Ed Hugus (see Hugus biography 'Cobra Pilote') for Le Mans '63 which were found surviving on '13 COB's chassis, and which remain in place to this day. These include front and rear suspension towers having spring locating blocks welded on, extra pedal box material to permit side-by-side master cylinder mounting, and small brackets for the shortened boot lid needed to permit fitting of a Le Mans hardtop.
Today's front suspension tower form suggests it is indeed a contemporary replacement.
Most significantly, only five early pre-November 1963 right-hand drive AC Cobra chassis are known to have been built, four with familiar histories. This - as confirmed by former AC Owners' Club Registrar Robin Stainer - is the fifth.
In September 2024, Neil Bainbridge of BS Motorsport conducted forensic magneto-photographic analysis of the barely visible stamp on '13 COB's right-side front member, confirming beyond doubt it reads 'CS 2131' - 'CS' representing 'Cobra Shelby' and (significantly) not reading 'CSX' which became the standard stamp-form for 'Export' cars intended predominantly for the United States.
During its current ownership '13 COB' has competed in the Modena Centro Ore Classics of 2006-08 and 2010, the Le Mans Classic in 2010 and 2016. In December 2011 its 4.9-litre Knight Racing Services V8 engine was replaced by the 4.7 440-horsepower Hi-Po V8 with period-correct FIA-legal T10 gearbox as offered today. In recent years it has been campaigned on behalf of the owner by the immensely respected Scots driver Anthony Reid who says it all when he relates how: "It's such a privilege to drive such a highly original car and to enter some of the greatest classic car events on the planet, ie. Goodwood Revival, Members' Meeting, Speed Week - overall it has become the best handling Cobra I have ever driven...".
Text & Image: Bonhams
