Steve McQueen either owned or borrowed a 289 Cobra. Now Matt Stone has a new book out about all of McQueen's cars, which included a Jag XKSS, a Ferrari 275GTB spyder, a Lusso 250GT (which just sold for over a million) and Matt devotes some space to the Cobra. I find it odd that he didn't get a 427 but then he originally drove some small displacement cars (like Porsche Speedster) and may have thought the big block was too, well, big. I think his car was dark green with a black interior. After the big sale of the Lusso I expect each McQueen car that can be documented will be fetching heavy bread as well...hell I can't even afford his Persol sunglasses... PS Stone left out the halftrack I think, the one he or someone else drove through a bar out in the desert
The license plate proves he just borrowed it That was the plate used on most Shelby test cars, it rotated from car to car. Interestingly some ultra Cobra fans have reproduced the black and yellow plate for car shows though it would be illegal to run it on the street. Bill Claxton also has some great pictures of a ride with McQueen in the Cobra where he is showing the engine to bystanders, etc. Look for photo books by Claxton who used to be an art director at Motor Trend but was really a fine art photographer recognized around the world for his pictures of jazz artists (no one at Motor Trend realized he had this other more famous identity)
There is also a great pic of Steve M. and Carroll looking over a cobra in front of the princeton drive facility in Dave Friedman's Book... Vern
the car was black on black, I recently read that the car was leased to McQeen. I dont know for how many months or if he tried to purchase the car in later years as with the bullit car.
Not sure where I got it from, it was a while ago. I think I got it off the net, when I googled Steve Mcqueen.