Bill Cosby. A person who has probably become a bit of a parody of himself, no thanks in part to numerous p*sstakes on Family Guy and The Simpsons. Add to that his cuddly, loveable buffoon image on The Cosby Show and you may be thinking you just can't take the man seriously.
Well, shame on you, you should. He starred in the great 60's spoof spy series I Spy as well as Mother, Jugs & Speed and Uptown Saturday Night. But the main reason why you good people should take this man seriously? He's a petrolhead. Oh yeah.
As well as once being the spokesperson for Ford of America back in the 1970's, he's owned some pretty tasty automobiles; various Rollers and Italian exotica almost go without saying; but he also owned one of the two Cobra Super Snakes. It may have had an automatic transmission, but the Super Snake also had a 427ci big-block Ford V8 with twin Paxton superchargers and 925 bhp. Thats nine hundred and twenty five brake horsepower. Gulp. Only two were built.
After being persuaded by Carroll Shelby, Cosby bought it, drove it once, and then promptly sold it to someone else as it terrified him, a fact he elaborates on in his '200mph' skit:
Going back to his love of Italian thoroughbreds and Ferraris in particular, he also owned this Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2. Not to be confused with the later (and almost identical looking) 400 successor with the GM automatic transmission, The model was introduced in 1972 to replace the 365 GTC/4, with a chassis derived from that of the legendary 365GTB/4 'Daytona'. The 365 GT4 2+2 featured all-new Pininfarina bodywork; it was longer and wider to fulfil its role as a relaxed grand tourer but most of the running gear, including the engine, were carried over from it's Daytona forebearer. These cars were never officially imported to the States, so I assume he ordered it through the 'Milano Imports' as mentioned on the plaque.
Now take a moment to get used to the colour. Now on the face of it, brown, and a shade of brown that reminds you of, you know, that stuff should be the worst colour to have a car painted in, but this brown horse has kinda grown on me. The car was was for sale on eBay recently for $37,500; I spy a bargain for someone stateside....
