Cobra Driving Experience Across Manufacturers

[1795]

Hard to say. My ERA was a 427 street car with a 428 CJ and the coil overs. It rode nicely, you had to be careful about the throttle, especially if you were turning and had to give it a little more throttle due to someone coming around a blind curve. You do not need a lot of horsepower in these cars, torque comes into play much more than HP. It's pretty hard to get the revs up high unless you have a very low geared rear end or leave it in a lower gear in most driving. On the highway with a more lenient speed limit you might start approaching the maximum HP on a car.

My SPF 289 FIA has the transverse leaf springs and they are very stiff. I cannot really compare the two as the FIA is a dedicated race car, so it is never on the street and all of it's driving is at high speeds or going hard into corners. It does handle well on the track. It is quite common in hard corners with sufficient speed to lift one of the front tires off the track. I am not sure if the coil over cars are as susceptible as the leaf spring cars are to that.

Jim

[1985 CCX]

I would say that your car was probably stiffer, my AC and the gold car are very much like an original in feel. The chassis do flex, the AC MKIV is slightly stiffer than original MKIII as it did get a few added steel bars for DOT reasons. MKII are flexing all the time.

My Gold (buggy) car is sharp in turns, much like Jim's however he may have more spring than I do. Mine rides fairly supple, also have more sidewall than Jim which may be the result of more supple feel. Keep in mind the coilover cars were an evolution and much improved over the 50's buggy chassis with stiffer frame and better 4 corner independent suspension.

Hope this helps. I have never driven an ERA, driven race 427's and street 427's along with street 289's.