CSX2287. Photos by Michael Furman, courtesy Historic Vehicle Association.

It faces stiff competition, but then again, CSX2287, one of the six Shelby Cobra Daytonas built, didn’t exactly go up against a bunch of fifth-graders when it originally raced. This time, however, CSX2287 won’t wage battle on the racetrack for physical laurels, but rather in the coliseum of public opinion for the title of International Historic Motoring Awards Car of the Year.

While Shelby American specifically built the Cobra Daytona for the 2,000-mile 1964 Daytona Continental endurance race, CSX2287 would go on to compete at Sebring and Le Mans against Ferraris, Corvettes, Lolas, Porsches, Alfas and more. It would even go up against the one unyielding opponent – the clock – at the Bonneville Salt Flats. And by the end of 1964, it returned not only a first in class at Sebring, helping bring the first FIA GT championship to an American team, it also set about two dozen records on the salt with Craig Breedlove at the wheel and hit a top speed of 187 MPH.

Its post-racing years proved to be just as eventful, ending up in the hands of music producer Phil Spector and later a woman who committed suicide without leaving a will. The ensuing legal battle brought the unrestored Daytona into the public eye again and culminated with Fred Simeone’s purchase of CSX2287 for $3.75 million. More recently, the Daytona became the first vehicle to go on the National Historic Vehicle Register, a collaboration between the Historic Vehicle Association and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Heritage Documentation Program that aims to document and provide an incentive to preserve the United States’s automotive treasures.

1954 Ferrari 375 MM Scaglietti coupe. Photo by Jeff Koch.

To date, no American car has won the International Historic Motoring Awards’s Car of the Year award. The IHMA didn’t even nominate one last year, and among this year’s expanded shortlist of eight cars for the award, four come from the United Kingdom, two from Italy, and one from Germany; all come with world-class credentials. Take, for instance, the 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Scaglietti coupe that last month became the first Ferrari and the first post-war car in 46 years to win the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Then there’s the 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO, the first GTO to come up for auction since 1990, which sold at Bonhams Quail Lodge for $38.115 million, setting a world record for cars sold at public auction.

Other nominees for the Car of the Year award include all six of the continuation lightweight E-Types that Jaguar’s Heritage Vehicle Workshop is building, the first project for the newly announced department; the Mercedes 18/100 that won the 1914 French Grand Prix and has traveled the world on a centennial tour this year; the 1968 Lotus Type 56 gas-turbine car that ran at the Indy 500 and that recently came out of restoration; another gas-turbine racing car, the Rover BRM, which ran at Le Mans in 1963 and 1965 and also recently came out of restoration; and the Sunbeam 350hp Blue Bird, which Malcolm Campbell ran to 150.766 MPH in 1925 to set the world land-speed record and which this year fired up for the first time since the 1960s.

A re-creation of the one-off magnesium-bodied Bugatti Type 57SC Aerolithe (going up against another Malcolm Campbell Blue Bird) won the Car of the Year award last year, the famed Birkin Bentley won it the year before, and a Porsche Type 64 Rekordwagon won it in the award’s inaugural year.

Other awards the IHMA will present this year include Museum or Collection of the Year, Restoration of the Year, Specialist of the Year, Publication of the Year, Club of the Year, Rally of the Year, Race series of the Year, Motorsport Event of the Year, Motoring Event of the Year, Personal Achievement of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Industry Supporter of the Year, and Tour of the Year.

Voting for Car of the Year will end November 1. The awards dinner will take place November 20 at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London. For more information, visit HistoricMotoringAwards.com.