[What'saCobra?]

Tommy K:
I will take a few pics and send. We have met. I visited you two summers ago on the way back from Seattle after dropping off my Crossle 15F, had a trailer attached, bot a sway bar and speedometer. Your stuff is the best...hands down...and your engineered bits are even better. My to do list includes one of your cars one day.

Clay:
Yet the Cub was lots of fun. Any taildragger is because that's the way the Good Lord inspired the first designers, before the chicken-hearted wanted a wheel on the nose. Imagine trying to land a Robin Reliant at high speed!

Bernie:
Nice to talk to someone from the back of bourke. Your pics look like bottler and you have earned the right to be clucky about her. Definately my bowl of rice.

Will copy brake bits. This thread's got some nice poms lurking about it and they have contributed well and nicely and encouraged a bit of partie without being an earbashing and that's just crackers to me.

Sink some cold piss and plonk for me down there, but don't go rotten about it.

Trev:
There is no such thing as too much information that's interesting and well said. That's the fun of it, mate. There are no tight posting length limitations here, so we are free to fire away at will and be read or not as the reader pleases.

Some of these guys respect their elders and the very few that don't are cool and wish to learn another way.

Our equipent list crosses again. My first "sports car" was also a Sprite...a stage V motor from the factory and sort of a Sebring Sprite w/o the secial nose. I think it had about 70hp or so. I sold my Chrysler 300 for it because I wanted to experience the "purity" of a good handling machine, if miniscule.

I could go down the New England country roads much quicker in the Sprite, of course, despite the 300's monster engine and fantastic TorqueFlite 3 speed auto. The Sprite didn't need a lot of braking like the Big C, since you could carry on through the curvy bits at will. Loads of laughs and no off-roading, thank you, because of the very very low exhaust system, which was very expensive and rotted out each year (or less!) for replacement. The special two pipe exhaust was particularly priceey...

That stinkin' Sprite took much of my abuse, thank you very much. I would speed shift it, having gotten used to the very quick and hard shifts of the Big C autobox. The twin SU's required a bit of tuneup from time to time, but otherwise the car was great. It taught me the importance of good handling over power, but I yearned for something with both until 1963 and my first Cobra.

Sort of a dream come true. I couldn't believe how fantastic it was and I still salivate today when I see any on the road. It is a real iconoclast's car, to be sure and has all the elements of a dream sequence in the flesh.

Of course, the transmission failed from my abuse and I eventually bot out my local (80 miles away!) BMC dealer's stock of clutches, which made him rich and happy.

I lived in northern NH, so the roads were most kindly and appropriate for a hot Sprite. But, it was only hot in the summer, because the heater/demister didn't either heat or demist in the Winter.

But, I also had a very used Saab 99 which put EVERYBODY to shame on the snowy and icy roads. With a heater that put out lot's more heat than my girlfriend at the time, I seem to recall. No matter, the car's all made up for all that stuff.

The 99 taught me the importance of managing body roll or lean, particularly in the transition from left to right (or versa visa) in the tight and twisties.

But the front wheel drive made it the best on ice...I only found one car ever to match it...and that was a Volkswagon 412 wagon, would you believe? The 412 was roomy, very high underbody clearance, light, big sindow visibility, gasoline heater (at last!), deep displacement McPherson suspension designed by Porche and 100 real fuel injected horsepower flat four mounted like any pukka VW just behind the rear wheels. It was fantastic, no kidding. The underbody was a smooth pan, so you could punch a high drift at speed and sail, skid over the top and land with lots of traction and power.

Imagine the reaction of the oncoming old fharters when they saw this gold 412 coming around the corners at them with a 20 to 30 degree yaw angle, throwing snow and ice to the outside of the turn..

Of course, you had to have Michelin X's, nothing else would do. I have had something with X's or their later versions since the '59 Sprite. But, later the carbide tipped Semperits were another upgrade for winter and the car was even better than in the dry.

Like the Finns, living in northern New England did provide good practice every day just going to work.

Much later in life, I worked in Russia for about 10 years, before, during and after the revolution; which has the same weather and even worse roads, since road salt had not been invented by the proleteriat. I used to drive Lada's the same way and none of my few fellow Americans would ride with me if the weather was icy, because they could see my drooling anxiety to get with it and they would find other things to do. But, the local Ruskies and Finns thought it was a blast and were properly impressed with both the yaw angles and driving attitudes, both the car's and mine.

I always wanted to drive a Cobra in Russia, but the cost and inconvenience was difficult to overcome. But, someday I will tell you about the first post-war seaplane flight from Helsinki harbor to Tallin harbor (Estonia was still a Soviet Republic at the time) I organized with a great pal and piloted with a Cessna 180B.

Yet another crossed path car and driver...I spent a year driving John Woolfe's 1968/9 McLaren M6B Chassis# 50/16 in International SuperSports. That's how I know your ag pilot. Woolfe was a champion for sure, though I never met him, much to my regret. His 917 catastrophe was most sincerely regrettable and a bloody waste to us and his family. The 917 didn't deserve his skills as it was so lousy at the beginning.

Airplanes and cars get re-engineered at the sight of good men's blood. We lost so much when Ken Miles went missing from the Shelby American group. The Cobras have eaten their own fair share of the hearts of our champions. It is the nature of both man, macnine and material progress.