Many fancy themselves as speed freaks, but no can deny the ultimate form of speed lies not on the ground–but in the air.

For a fraction of the asking price for a Mecum auction Daytona, you can be the owner of America’s most praised fighter jet.  The North American F-86 Sabre drove the US Air Force to obtain air superiority over the skies of Korea in the 1950s.  The Sabre’s sleek design offered cutting-edge subsonic qualities, such as low-drag swept wings that provided superb maneuverability and speed.

GE turbojet engines, though different among the Sabre variants, could be expected to push this beauty up to 570 to 680 mph, depending on the exact model, while the ceiling hovers just below 50,000 ft.  Working Sabres range in price from $700,000 to $2,000,000, and hundreds of retired planes are waiting around for much less from Amazonia to the Balkans. chevy s10 for sale

You knew this was coming.

Shelby American has either reproduced or authorized reproductions of all its classics, from the Cobra 289 to the Ford GT40.  While some of those replicas are second-rate, the Shelby-made Cobras and authorized SuPerformance Daytonas are exceptional cars for the money.  We’ve always been suckers for the 289, though–easier to tame on the road than the 427.

Because of the large volume Shelby’s built up of his Cobra line since the ’90s, prices for these cars new or used aren’t absurdly high.  We’ve seen genuine Shelby-built later 289s for $70,000.  Just because we’re ragging on an overpriced auction car doesn’t we don’t like the name.

We reported a couple months back about a rare 1965 Shelby Daytona up for auction at Mecum.  The seller had hoped to have his car become a record-holder with a final bid between $10,000,000 and $11,000,000.  The final bid was nowhere near those figures.  The seller and Mecum group claim there was a post-auction offer of as much as $7,500,000, but the seller was still unsatisfied.

Here we go again.  The seller is pushing the Shelby coupe on the block once again, hoping this season’s Monterey auction will bring in a willing buyer up to the seller’s financial standards.

That’s going to be a hard sell.  With a shaky economy, classic American car values in the dumps, and an astonishingly high sales expectation, we find it very unlikely this car will hit the eight-figure mark.  The only cars we can count hitting eleven million have been Ferrari’s revered 250 Testa Rossas and GTOs.  Still, this Daytona is in marvelous condition, is extremely rare, and has real history behind it.

Shelby’s put out official pics and specs for the 2010 GT500 Super Snake.  The Super Snake, unlike the regular GT500, is an actual Shelby project undertaking directly by the company staff.  (The GT500 uses the Shelby name pretty much for marketing purposes.)  The benefit of having the Ford/Shelby name running side-by-side is that Shelby’s own tuners can market their specials as being almost factory-grade.

There shouldn’t been much need for marketing with the refreshed Snake.  This GT500 uses a juiced supercharger instead of a needle in the ass.  With an upgraded intercool and exhaust system, the Super Snake will put out 630 hp in stage one trim, or an unfathomable 725 hp with the stage two setup.  (The regular GT500′s max output is 540 hp.)

All this power requires added tweaks to support the extra muscle.  Suspension’s been extensively modified with stiffened springs, reinforced struts, and strengthened antiroll bars.  Baer six-piston ventilated disc brakes bring in the necessary stopping power for the SC’d 5.4 L V-8.

So just how much does all this serpent glory come in at?  The Super Snake is considered a performance package: stage one is $29,500; two is priced at $33,500.  With the GT500′s approximately $45,000 sticker, expect to be doling out $75,000 for the 630 hp package and $79,000 for the 725.

If George Michael had pulled this out at that park restroom years ago, we can all be sure he wouldn’t have gone to jail.

The Ford sports car has been an ongoing issue for the company to this very day.  The Thunderbird was a wildly popular two-seater in the 1950s, easily outselling Chevrolet’s Corvette.  Bean counters opted to enlarge the T’Bird and add rear seats, leaving GM to offer the only serious American sports car.  Ford’s top brass couldn’t argue with the “Big Bird’s” growing sales figures, so it decided to support other efforts like the Shelby Cobra and the De Tomaso Pantera.

After a rough time from the mid-’70s to the ’80s, Ford mounted a big comeback.  With the ’90s, Ford felt confident enough the test the supercar waters.  It sought to revive the excitement from its classic GT40 race car with a fresh, high-tech design.  The result was the GT90.

Like the era’s top supercar, the McLaren F1, the GT90 employed an immendsely powerful engine combined with a light body.  Carbon fiber monocoque construction served as the body support, keeping the weight down to just 3,200 lbs.  The car employed a fully independent double-wishbone suspension derived from Jaguar’s XJ220.  (Also taken from the Jag parts bin was a five-speed manual transmission.)

The heart of the car was a mid-mounted 5.9 L forty-eight-valve V-12.  The engine was backed by four Garrett turbochargers, helping push the maximum output to 720 hp.  Ford spin doctors claimed the GT90 could outclass any production supercar on the road.  Top speed was said to be anywhere from 235 mph to as much as 253.

Of course, there was never any proof of this.  The test model could only hit 40 mph, and no prototype was built to achieve anything far beyond that.  Press reports and articles floated around for years claiming the GT90 was being readied for production.  Even more stunning (and McLaren-like): Only one hundred examples were to be built.

The GT90 never did get off the ground.  The projected cost far outweighed any marketing advantages.  The boom years of the Taurus and Explorer gave way to steady losses; by the start of the new millennium, the GT90 concept was left to the dust bin of time.  A tiny bit of irony came when Ford did build an exotic sports car in the 2000s, but based the design on the original GT40.

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The 2009 SuPerformance Mk. III isn’t officially a “Cobra,” as the name is trademarked and out of the tuner’s reach.  The Mk. III also uses a vinylstere body for low weight and expense as opposed to traditional steel and aluminum.  Among the updates are an improved radiator, air intake system, disc brakes, and suspension.  The last makes Mk. III more road-friendly than the actual Cobra, but still offers immense speed up to 180 mph.  (Top speed will depend on option choice.)

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Next up in our SuPerformance gallery bonanza is the company’s pride & joy: the Cobra Daytona.  A lot of advertising has been put behind the hi-po coupe–and ever more time and engineering.  The SuPerformance Daytona is marketed as much on its open-end customization as on its authenticity.  Among the conveniences not found in the rare original are superior shock absorbers, a road-friendly suspension, an upgraded rear-differential, tinted windows, a new custom air conditioning system, and remote entry.

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