I actually tried not to get a Cobra. Sorry if you've heard this before, but it's been awhile and some haven't.
Dick Smith was a contract pilot for one of my ag clients and used to fly me around the state from the late 70s and into the mid-90s to deal with labor disputes...sometimes 2-3 times a month, 2-4 hour flights sitting in the co-pilot seat next to him. On and on he'd go about freeking Cobras...I grew up a Chevy man, so we'd argue about Vettes vs Cobras until we'd land in somewhere like Blythe, then I'd go screw with a union for a few hours and come back to the airport and we'd fly home taking up the arguments right where we'd left off. I never changed his mind.
I campaigned a 92 Vette through most of the 90s in Solo and ProSolo. We had sort of an unlimited class in the SFR Region called OSP (Open Street Prepared)...where stuff like Chevy powered 240Zs and other purpose-built autocross dogs lived. RX-7s were killing Vettes in the SS class so I went hunting for something unique for OSP and came across a Butler Cobra at the short-lived Casa de Cars next to the gas station at Casa de Fruita in Pacheco Pass on my way home from doing some work in Salinas, which was amazingly even more mucho muy goodo than normal Cobras for autocrossing because the engine was set back so much further...did very well with that mount in competition and for everything else we do with these things.
Before I decided on the Kirkham, I was looking at Vipers, the Series 1 (yes, I admit it), Panteras...and then I went to Provo.
Dick never let me live down the fact that I had finally been bitten by the snake so late in life. Damn him for leaving.