At Willow at the Cocoa meet there was a red small block A.C. Cobra with an odd side vent on each front flnak, sort of a triangle shaped hole smaller than the regulation vent in the 289 and 427 with a sort of wire grate across it like you would find in a drain. The car looked unrestored and I heard that it was in the central valley of California for decades. It is in fine running condition and I wonder if anybody else knows if this was the first car Shelby tried to put a side grate in and why it was left that way while they tried what became the traditional grate on another car. the only thing I wonder about this is that the grates in the '63 LeMans Cobras were like the traditional grates in all production 289 and 427s except maybe they were larger in the '63 LeMans cars of which there were three made but only two entered the race. I would have thought those were the prototype side grate cars but then this red one looked like a genuine old car unmolested since the Sixties. And ran damn hard too.
