At $30,000, Could You Feel The Grip Of This 1990 Kelly Python?

Carroll Shelby named his AC-based sports car after a snake that could strike with lightning-fast speed. In contrast, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Python shares its moniker with an asp that’s best known for slowly suffocating its prey. Hopefully, the price of this rare one-off won’t stifle your enthusiasm.

Jonathan Bennett And His Late 1980’s Honda Accord | My First Car

For something so ubiquitous in our lives—powering everything from feline fun-making to retail checkouts—it’s remarkable that lasers haven’t actually been around all that long. The first proof-of-concept laser was built in 1960 by the physicist Theodore Maiman at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. That makes it a younger technology than the transistor or even Velcro. The 1995 Plymouth Laser RS we looked at yesterday is even younger still. However, it proved old enough to be a bit of an outlier in today’s car market. That, and a $9,995 price tag, didn’t do our Laser any favors. At the end of the day, all it could manage was a 65 percent No Dice loss.

The world is full of “What ifs.” Some postulate that we are actually living in some sort of multi-verse where every decision point branches off into separate scenarios where each option plays out like a never-ending Pachinko machine.

If that postulation is indeed true, then there exists some universe out there in which Ford’s 1960s Styling X-cars concepts actually reached production and gave the Corvette a well-deserved run for its money. In our universe, the trio of cars—the Mustang II show car, Cougar II coupe, and Bordinat Cobra roadster—never fulfilled their full potential.

In a perfect world, the latter two cars, both riding on early leaf-spring AC Cobra chassis and powered by 260 CID V8s, would have been Ford’s answer to the Chevy Corvette. Both were designed under the lead of then-head of Ford Design, Eugene Bordinat (hence the roadster’s nickname), and both are still kicking around today, having been fully restored about 20 years back.

So magnetic was the story behind the Bordinat Cobra that in the early 1990s, some brave souls attempted to capture some of that concept’s magic by way of a limited production car based on a modified Mustang GT and dubbed the Kelly Python. The Kelly part of the car’s name comes from Alvin Kelly, the individual who acted as the catalyst of the project and who received the blessing from the then-retired Bordinat to produce a modern interpretation of his namesake car.

Unfortunately, as such things usually go, money struggles and the simple onus of creating and then hand-building a specialty car overwhelmed the project. No production cars were ever actually offered, and the work was shut down after only 12 prototypes were completed.

Today, only seven of the cars are thought to still be in existence, and this one, in black over black and carrying a brass dash plaque denoting its prototype nature, is the one most commonly seen on the used car market. In fact, a quick Web search shows this particular car having been offered for sale at multiple price points almost every year for the past half-decade. Howdy, friend!

The car itself is pretty cool. The base is a factory 1990 Mustang GT convertible, which has been shortened and fitted with a fiberglass body featuring lines that approximate those of the 1963 Bordinat Cobra. Like the ’60s sports car, the Python features pop-up headlamps, smoothed lines, and a two-seat layout. The clever repurposing of 1980s Aerobird tail lamps gives the car a more modern look but still pays homage to the original. A specially made convertible top is also fitted.

Both the cabin and the mechanicals are pure Mustang GT, and the latter means a 225 horsepower 5.0 V8 and five-speed stick, working with a live axle rear end. Fat tires on turbine-style alloy wheels are fitted all around. A Flowmaster exhaust has been added to the car, as has, somewhat comically, a “Handling by Lotus” badge off of an old Isuzu. According to the ad, the car has 47,600 miles on the clock and. is in “excellent” condition.

It looks to be in pretty nice shape as well and is unique enough to garner attention at both car shows and fuel stops. The title is clean, and while the tags are not current, it’s possible that the seller is simply using older photographs in the ad as they have been trying to sell the car for some time. The price tag this time around is $30,000.

What’s your take on this Python and that $30K asking? Does that feel like a deal for a bit of Ford history that pays homage to even more Ford history? Or is that price just a total pain in the asp?

You decide!

Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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