[Paul A]

Additional details on ERA044 that Billy Idol purchased.
I indicated that I had additional anecdotes about Billy's early use of ERA044. In those days (mid-80s) he was appearing in Vegas. He had owned the car for about a year and I got a call from him & the owner of the shop who maintained his motorcycle collection and Billy had a major problem driving it back from Vegas to LA.
While heading west bound on the interstate at speed, Billy and his passenger saw something bright/shinny streaking past the car into the desert. Then they saw a wheel/tire starting to pass up the car on the right side and rolled out into the desert for about 100 yards. Believe me, I couldn't write a script better than this if I tried. The car was equipped with the 6 drive pin knock wheels.
First the wing nut flew off and passed up the car and then the wheel came out of the wheel well without any damage to the body/chassis and sheared off all the drive pins. This was living proof that the ERA Cobra is a 50/50 weight distribution vehicle and sat at rest with one wheel missing.
They wanted to know where they could get new drive pins & a new knockoff spinner. I gave them Mike McCluskey's name and business contact info in Torrance, CA. It was Mike who I purchased all of their brand new Trigo wheels, adapters, wingnuts in 1982.
I asked how the wing nut came off because I was very serious about safety and lock wired the wingnut to the wheels, I was a test engineer for an aircraft manufacture and safety was everything.
Billy responded that he had a flat tire on the right rear, 295/50x15 BFG radial. He just had a typical tire store do the flat repair and put it back on the car. I strongly suspect that no one in that shop had a shot filled hammer to knock on the 3 ear wing spinner and NO lock wire & No lock wire pliers.
Correction to my earlier comment about winning best Cobra replica @ Knottsberry Farm Show, it was in 1985 and not 1995 as shown.
A note on pictures of the car: I do have photos of the finished car and photos it during the build, but I will need to have those photos converted into digital. It will take some time.