Mine is a little long, but here is the whole story of how I came to building a CObra. I'm 33, but I've wanted one since I was about 8. My Dad has always been into cars. He started dragging me to car shows around that age and he started a complete ground up restoration on a 56 ford victoria when I was around 12 and he completed it when I was about 18. When I was about 22-23 he started a complete ground up restoration on a 61 Galaxie 500 convertible which was completed about 5 years ago. He still owns both. I know he would like to do another, but he's busy with other hobbies right now. When my brother was about 14 he decided he was going to restore a 1928 Model A at the same time my Dad was restoring the 56. Most guys in my Dad's car club laughed and blew him off. Well, by the time he graduated high school he had completed a complete ground up restoration on that Model A, he even painted it himself, which he still owns, he is now 34. His latest project was a complete restoration on a 1951 home built ski boat. He also owns a mint unrestored 289 67 Mustang. Growing up I had a couple late model Mustangs, but I was more into racing than building. Of course the whole building thing was now instilled in my blood so I had to follow suit. I had been talking about building a kit for several years, but being the conservative that I am, I just couldn't see spending my money on something that seemed frivolous. Well my 30th B-day rolled around and my wife decided to order one for me for my B-day. She tried hard on her own to get it ordered without my knowledge, but there were too many options, so she caved and had to let me in on her little secret. I was so excited we went ahead and bought a Factory Five kit. A couple months later the kit had arrived and was sitting in my garage, but I still hadn't told my Dad. We had recently moved into our new house and my Dad had bought me some floor paint for the garage. We invited my parents over for a little cook out and I said hey, you guys want to see how the floor turned out? We walked outside and you should have seen my Dads face when I opened the door, he was so excited and couldn't believe I had finally joined him and my brother with such a project. Within a year I had the car on the street minus paint and it was another year later before I was able to get it painted, but it's a blast and we have quite a little collection between the 3 of us. So that's my story.
Rob