If you’ve ever wondered why certain cars are worth so much money, just remember the law of supply and demand. The fewer there is of something, the more people will pay for it. And in the case of cars like the original Shelby Cobra, so few were built, and even fewer remain, that the relative handful of survivors often bring top dollar at auction.
It’s one thing to buy a quarter-million dollar car; it’s another thing entirely to actually take it to the track and race it. We have a lot of respect for the kinds of people who will drive an original rarity like the Shelby Cobra…but there is always the chance, however slight, that you might not be coming home with your car.
Over at r/cars, this image of a toasted Shelby Cobra cropped up, along with this Reddit thread, which seems to confirm our worst fears; this absolutely totaled Shelby Cobra was an original, aluminum body car,which means there is one less Cobra left in the world.
Details are scarce, though according to the Reddit poster, the incident happened at an all-original Shelby rally in the past week. Another racer noticed that the Shelby, which was once painted white, was on fire. The driver pulled off and got away safely, but the car was consumed by the fire in about ten minutes. Given the fact that this is obviously an aluminum body, this means this Shelby was either an original, and a high-cost replica. A damn shame, either way.