The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 16 King Cobra CM3-63 Is Back Among The Living After four years of work, King Cobra CM3-63 is finally back on its wheels and running. It has undergone a meticulous restoration by Lee Castleberry and his crew at Audrain Motorsports. CEO Donald Osborne oversees the Audrain domain which includes a museum in Newport, Rhode Island as well as a library, touring events, a high-end restoration facility, car preparation, a state-of-the-art storage facility and collection consult- ing services. They’ve missed nothing. Plans call for David Donohue (Mark’s son) who is Senior Vice Presi- dent at Audrain, to drive the car at Goodwood if they losen up on Covid re- quirements. Peter Brock recalls this car’s history: it was driven by Dave MacDonald at Kent in 1964, probably his greatest drive. MacDonald was testing at Indy and Bob Holbert was practicing in MacDonald’s King Cobra, which was a brand new car originally built for Craig Lang. Hol- bert crashed the car in the rain, smashing into several cars in the pits and destroyed it. MacDonald arrived at the track the next day to find his car had been destroyed, so he drove this car – which was at the track as Holbert’s back-up. MacDonald ulti- mately won the race against Jim Hall’s Chaparral.