The Mercer Cobra, may be ugly enough to cause eyes to bleed, dogs to cower, and designers to faint... but did you know it was built on a Shelby Chassis? CSX 2451 and a 289 went into this uggo

commissioned by the Copper Development Association from Virgil Exner’s designs in Esquire. Its design was drawn up by Virgil Exner and Virgil Exner, Jr.

Exner attempt at what a Mercer roadster would look like if they had stayed in business. The only reason the Cobra name is tied in is because they needed a frame and bought CSX2451 and a 289 Ford engine from Shelby to have this one and only Mercer built which makes it part of the Cobra history.

Although it bears a CSX number (as it should), it was born as a bare chassis at AC and had it's wheelbase stretched.
Shelby took the order from Exner, a US customer... but the finished chassis was drop-shipped from AC to Italy, where the new body was crafted.
So they didn't scrap any of Shelby's stock of Cobras and this pup never saw SoCal.

info and photos from http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/all-cobra-talk/92658-csx2451-mercer-cobra.html

I posted 2 photos of it a year ago, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/have-you-seen-anything-uglier-than-this.html but didn't know then about the chassis info

For a full gallery and written analysis http://www.topspeed.com/cars/shelby/1965-mercer-cobra-roadster-ar113038.html