Hello fellow Cobra Owners!
My dad and I have used this forum quite a bit over the past few months and the knowledge on this site is incredible. Growing up on a dairy farm, my dad and I always talked about putting together a hot rod someday and originally thought of getting an early '60s Vette - but they're way too expensive. In the meantime, the Cobras really caught our attention.
Fast forward a few years and my dad has since sold the cows and most of the equipment but still own the farm. So we started on the motor first.... *warning - Cobra purists please skip to the next paragraph* My dad used to drag race back in his Air Force days using a '65 Chevelle with a 327 and Rochester fuel injection. In later years, he actually put that powerplant in a '56 Thunderbird. He started farming and the cars left but he held onto the motor/tranny which was stored in the barn for decades. I also had kept the motor from my truck I bought when I was 15 yrs old, a '73 Chevy C-10. So, we bored out the 350 block and used the heads from the 327 to come up with our powerplant. Honestly, we're Ford guys at heart and both drive Ford trucks - but in the interest in building a Cobra while trying to keep costs down, we used what we got.
We went to the Kit Car Show in Carlisle, PA, back in 2007 to see which manufacturer we'd pick. It came down to Shell Valley/Midstates and B & B, although there were a lot of good companies there. We chose the B&B for a couple of reasons, Bryan (owner) seemed great to work with and didn't give the evil stare when we mentioned the powerplant we were going to use.
But, most importantly, we loved the footwell and the extra room in the footbox area. I'm 6'3" with size 13 shoes and the B&B was by far the most comfortable for me to stretch out in. We went back to Carlisle in 2009, saw Bryan and put our order in. To our surprise, it was delivered the next month! We ordered the "Stage III", or the rolling chasis. As you can see in the gallery, we've made a lot of progress and actually got it started during Thanksgiving weekend. Hoping to get it painted and maybe on the road this year.
Finding time to work on it is difficult, the car is in upstate NY and I recently moved to Texas. But we'll get it done!
Looking forward to more conversations on the forum, keep the rubber side down!