AC Cobra 427 - CSX3217 | radicalmag racing

Snappy Swiss

And again, we are dealing with a special feature among the Cobras: three 427s were not fitted with their 7-litre engines at Shelby in the USA, but at FAV (Ford Advanced Vehicles) in Slough, England. Two of them went to Scuderia Filipinetti in Switzerland, first CSX3013, then also the vehicle we are showing here, CSX3217. The background to this was as follows: Although Georges Filipinetti had been a loyal Ferrari customer for many years, by mid-1965 he was no longer satisfied with the performance of the cars from Maranello. At Le Mans, the Scuderia Filipinetti still entered their Ferrari 250 LM, but a Ford GT40 and a Shelby Daytona Coupé were also entered in the race under the same colours. Apparently, a good relationship began between Georges Filipinetti and Carroll Shelby during the 24-hour race, with Shelby visiting the Swiss in Geneva shortly afterwards. The two agreed that Filipinetti should be given a very special Cobra, CSX3013, with which he would break a kilometre record. At the end of the season, Filipinetti’s ‘Performance Cars SA’ was also appointed as the representative for Ford sports cars in Switzerland, and a showroom was built especially for this purpose.

In March 1966, Filipinetti sent his two drivers, Franco Sbarro and Michel Piller, to England to pick up the first vehicles. A few days later, the GT40 and the Daytona Coupé that Scuderia Filipinetti had entered at Le Mans in 1965 were on display at the Ford Performance stand at the Geneva Motor Show, along with the brand new Cobra 427, CSX3217. After the show, this car was race-prepared and sold to Arnaldo Maestrini in Ticino. He competed in a number of hillclimb races in Switzerland with it, probably until 1968. Even later, CSX3217 still had a good history in Switzerland: Ernst Kaufmann owned the Cobra from 1991, had it restored and gently modified, from 2002 Nicolaus Springer was the next owner, and in 2015 Lukas Hüni bought the Cobra. Today, CSX3217 is once again a semi-competition Cobra, just as it was delivered to Maestrini; it is for sale at Fiskens (March 2025).