Of the six Cobra Daytona Coupes Shelby American built to beat Ferrari, Carroll Shelby kept exactly one for himself: chassis CSX2300, which he owned from 1975 to 1998. At Gooding Christie’s Pebble Beach Auctions in August 2026, that car sold for $42,905,000, a world record for any American car sold at auction.
The sale was part of the auction house’s two-day Pebble Beach sale, held Aug. 14 and 15, 2026, on the Monterey Peninsula. The price beat the previous American-car record by more than $20 million and made the Daytona Coupe the most valuable car the auction house has ever sold.
Gooding Christie’s set out the result in its post-sale release, published Aug. 17, listing “Lot 39 – 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, sold for $42,905,000.” The release says the car “set a new world record for American cars by a margin of over $20 million” and was “the most valuable car ever sold by Gooding Christie’s at auction.” The record it broke was the auction house’s own: “The previous record was set by Gooding at Pebble Beach in 2018 with the ex-Gary Cooper 1935 Duesenberg SSJ, which sold for $22 million.”
“The Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe became the most valuable American car of all time by a 95% increase over the previous record, which we so memorably set at this same venue eight years prior,” said David Gooding, the company’s president, in the release.
Six Daytona Coupes, built for one target
The Daytona Coupe was a closed-body answer to a specific problem. Gooding Christie’s lot listing for CSX2300 describes it as “one of only six Cobra Daytona Coupes created to defeat Ferrari’s 250 GTO.” Matt Anderson, writing for The Henry Ford museum in a 2022 article on the National Historic Vehicle Register, describes the type as “one of six built by Carroll Shelby and his Shelby American team to compete in sports car races.”
The first of those six won early. Anderson writes that CSX2287, “the first of the six built, and the only one built completely at Shelby American’s Venice, California, shop,” won “the GT class at the 1964 Sebring 12-Hour race,” driven by Dave MacDonald and Bob Holbert. That car later set 27 national and international land speed records at Bonneville with Craig Breedlove driving; it is listed on the National Historic Vehicle Register and is now in the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia.
CSX2300, from the Tour de France to Japan
CSX2300 followed as the third. A July 24, 2026, Old Cars Weekly preview of the sale states that “CSX2300 was the third Daytona Coupe completed in late 1963,” and that its “closed coupe body designed by ArtCenter alum Peter Brock” wore coachwork by Carrozzeria Grandsport.
The car’s record runs longer than any of its sisters’. According to the Gooding Christie’s listing, CSX2300 debuted at the 1964 Tour de France Automobile with Bob Bondurant and Jochen Neerpasch and was a “key participant in Shelby American’s historic 1965 FIA GT Championship season.” The Old Cars Weekly preview adds that the car “crossed the Atlantic to join the European campaign led by Alan Mann Racing, taking part in important endurance races at Nürburgring and Reims.”
When the factory program ended, CSX2300 kept going. It was, in the listing’s words, “the only Cobra Daytona Coupe to continue its competition career beyond Shelby American’s factory program, racing successfully in Japan through 1968.” The Old Cars Weekly preview names Fuji Speedway and the Japan Grand Prix among its venues there.
Its other distinction is the name on its title. Gooding Christie’s lists it as “Carroll Shelby’s personal Daytona Coupe from 1975 to 1998; the only example ever owned by its creator.” During his ownership, the Old Cars Weekly preview reports, “Shelby entrusted Cobra specialist Mike McCluskey of Torrance, California with a comprehensive restoration to return the car to its 1965 specification.”
Gooding Christie’s had published a pre-sale estimate “in excess of $25,000,000,” according to the same preview. The final price went well past it. As of the auction house’s Aug. 17 release, the 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, CSX2300, holds the world auction record for an American car at $42,905,000.
Top image: Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe CSX2299, a sister car to CSX2300, at the 2010 Canadian International AutoShow. Image Credit: Jaydec — CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.