Building the Wilment Coupe: The Other Cobra Daytona

Having a day off is like landing on a nicely appointed yet uninhabited island-save my wife Sharon Ann of course, who would certainly want to be there too I am sure. I'm not talking about having no potable water or overrun with those nasty crabs. At some point a Michelin five star establishment put up a fully outfitted beachfront cabana for times such as this, and it is of course free and the location is up for grabs as long as it is beach, tropical with a nice breeze, and without other examples of our species sans ourselves.

Recently the leave days from work were changed from Fridays and Mondays to Fridays and Tuesdays on my weekend rotations as a nurse, and I am feeling at this point that it does not matter-it represents a day off nonetheless. Our new director of nursing has made life rather miserable for the rank and file, so having to work under her confines for another day makes the time off all the more enjoyable, even if I was mowing three acres in ninety degree North Carolina Piedmont sunshine which of course I am not.

Being at our temporary home with my mom in Raleigh too has it's rewards, as my sole intent was to immerse my day in slot car related pursuits. A recently discovered photograph of the Ford of France Cobra Daytona caught my eye a few days back, requiring a decal redo of the nose roundel to correctly cant the numbers to the right as was the Nurburgring livery in 1965. This mushroomed into the final leg of restoring another Aurora T-Jet for the all-Cobra Pit Kit, even if I lacked all of the vintage Aurora waterslide white roundels without a black border found in the later Hop-Up kits. Once my imposed ban on slot car and MGB spending is lifted by my wife, Jairus Watson will be sending a painted Viking Blue version of CSX2287 as it initially raced at Sebring in 1964. This will be the sixth car in the eight car lineup on the front row of the Pit kit, with only two more to go to the finish line. Hopefully it will be filled with an equal number of Coupes and Roadsters as was the all Hot Rod Pit Kit, but beggars cannot be choosers when it comes to finding restorable Aurora Thunderjet Cobras.

Several months ago a red Cobra Coupe on a solid rivet chassis presented itself on ebay. From the photos the stripes appeared intact, but the roof still needed some work to bring it to my standards. It was extensively scratched right to the stripe edge, something that I could not fix using Mothers Polish on a denuded Q-Tip end. I happened to show this to Big-T on one of his visits to Camp Brown a couple of doors down from his parents on Deblyn Avenue, and he suggested using a progressive sanding system employed by modelers to remove imperfections in styrene. To my surprise one of these cloth sanding sets arrived at our doorstep several days later, and this has indeed been a godsend-I could have not done it without his help and certainly would have laid into the original and intact striping I was tying to save. The end result was up to snuff if you will, and a small patch of clear Saran Wrap cut to fit over the stripe would serve to keep my efforts intact as I race all of my restored Thunderjets, stripe or no stripe.

This newly appointed body has been built to represent an actual race car from the period, and in this case the red Wilment Team Cobra Daytona-CSX2131 which was bought from Shelby American at the end of the 1964 season by privateer John Wilment in England. The car was crashed heavily on an early outing and then subsequently sent to AC Cars in Thames Ditton  for a rebody, but to remain a coupe. With the help of Shelby Engineer John Ohlsen using original drawings provided by Peter Brock, AC panel beaters fabricated a new shell, but with a sharper nose; higher tail; and an open rear window. The car won it's debut race at Snetterton driven by Jack Sears, and was also driven in South Africa by Bob Olthoff with mixed results. Sears later on in the late 1965 season won the Guards International Trophy in the car.

Hopefully I will be able to snag a blue Daytona and a yellow Cobra roadster to finish out the pack. Fittingly this car resides with the only other non-Shelby team liveried Daytona, as well as my restored childhood Tyco Pro Cobra. I have enclosed a picture of the Pit Kit to date, complete with a couple of period brass weight pans for the Tyco Pro chassis as well as a scarce hopped up Mabuchi can. Of course any and all donations to the cause are welcome towards finishing this Pit Kit project. Keep your eyes peeled for some of those Aurora Hop-Up Kit decals will you! Jairus hopefully has some more that I sent him, but I am getting too old and infirm to remember. Besides-he uses the small sponsor decals on some of the driver suits he paints up for customers in the larger scales, which I am more than glad to give him for his excellent craftsmanship on my behalf. God Bless! Tony mgbbrown