Mecum Auctions will offer a 289-powered Shelby Cobra Dragonsnake at their upcoming Kissimmee sale in January. This Cobra, CSX2427, has an extremely well-documented history dating back to its original owner, Don Reimer of Gettysburg.
CSX2427 was the only Cobra Dragonsnake equipped with a Stage III quadruple-Weber carburation system from the factory. It was special ordered in yellow to match the Thunderbird tow vehicle Don Reimer and his brother Mike already owned.
The Reimer brothers paid $9,000 to take delivery of the Shelby Cobra in August of 1964. They performed a few runs at their local airfield before competing at the York U.S. 30 Drag-O-Way. Mike, the younger brother was behind the wheel while Don managed their team in both A/Modified and AA/Modified Production. Although they were a small outfit, they meant business with their matching yellow crew uniforms and even managed to run at the Indianapolis Nationals.
After that season Mike Reimer returned to school and the car was listed for sale in the December 1965 issue of Car and Driver. The asking price was a firm $4,650 and the listing is quoted as saying, “Reason for selling, son returned to college.”
CSX2427 was in the hands of its third owner by July of 1966, a man named Dodge Olmstead out of Arlington, Virginia. He modified the car to make it more suitable for road racing and competed in SCCA events. Following an apparent crash in 1967 Olmstead painted the car Candy Apple Red when it was rebuilt.
Either its fourth or fifth owner repainted the car yellow and eventually it made its way to Canada in the care of its fifth owner, Howard Heath. Prior to 1988 Heath painted CSX2427 silver and eventually Peter Klutt of Legendary Motorcar Company purchased the car in 1988.
Klutt returned the car to a yellow finish with a black interior and displayed it at SAAC 20 in July of 1995. It was awarded Silver in the Cobra Concours class at that event. Following this Legendary Motorcar advertised the car as having only 3,596 original miles. It was sold along with a Ford Thunderbolt in 1996 to Prove International of Raleigh, North Carolina and was subsequently sold to Richard Scaife of Pittsburg.
January 2001 saw CSX2427 sell at auction for $190,000 to Harry Yeagey who then traded it to Rich Mason of Carson City in 2004. Mason then converted it back to a road racing specification and competed in vintage races before selling it to Steven Juliano in February of 2007.
Juliano got to work on a concours-level restoration to return CSX2427 to the original Dragonsnake specification, even consulting Mike Reimer, the car’s original driver to achieve maximum authenticity. Upon completion CSX2427 was displayed in Juliano’s private museum before receiving a Premiere Award at SAAC 34 in August of 2009, achieving the highest points score in SAAC history up to that time.
CSX2427 has subsequently appeared in numerous publications and was a featured car in the Ford tent at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca Raceway in 2012.
Mecum estimates this 1965 Shelby Cobra Dragonsnake will sell between $1,750,000 and $2,000,000 and we’re fairly confident this car will have no problem achieving a price in that range. It’s one of only five factory-built 289 Cobra Dragonsnakes and the only factory-built Stage III customer Dragonsnake. Couple that with its incredibly well-documented history and we expect to see this car sell within Mecum’s estimate, if not above it.