I've been looking for a Cobra for months with a healthy budget of £25-40k. I'd prefer to buy used for the obvious reason that whilst depreciation thankfully tends to be low on a used replica example, I can save maybe £4-5k on a 3-5 year old example.
Despite the 50+ cars available on Piston Heads, I'm shocked by the poor choice available in the UK - specifically for someone who wants an authentic as possible replica. Despite the options available to people building their cars in the UK, why do so many people have such poor taste in choosing cream and flashy interiors when the original interiors were so basic.
Original type interior looks like this:
But this is an example of how so many UK built cars look like inside:
This is NOT an authentic looking interior - no authentic Cobras had a dash layout like this and a "bling" interior. WHY oh WHY are so many UK built cars made with non correct interiors? Time after time and hour after hour I look through autotrader / pistonheads / carandclassic and find a nice 427 looking car only to go into the ad and find it has this type of crappy interior.
This only seems to be the UK as well and only maybe 1, 2 or 3 of 60 cars available at a time have the correct authentic type dash layout. This makes it incredibly less likely and more hard to find a car within my budget that is blue with stripes!!
Compare this to the US where most builders have the taste to create cars with the correct interior dash layout. Just look at this listing of cars on the US eBay for example:
http://motors.shop.ebay.com/Cars-Tru...c0.m282&_rdc=1
and check out this Superperformance at $50k (around £30k so well within my budget):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1965-...0aee06bc#v4-32
I can't import a car though as it's LHD and the taxes and VAT etc erode the apparently good price (it would end up costing maybe £50k with RHD conversion if even possible)
Why are so many cars created without any consideration in making it look authentic? It extends to the exterior in many cases as well with incorrect front air filters etc etc and in many cases it isn't any more difficult to make it look proper. If the dash needs to be padded and non rocker switches for SVA, this is easy to do by padding it etc and then changing it after it passes, but people seem to go for this "centred dial" look which is completely NOT a Cobra. Look at the Trevor Legate book of authentic cobras and they ALL have an interior like the top photo albeit with some 289 and earlier cars having both dials behind the steering wheel.
Most examples in the UK seem to be from the "drive around and pose on Sunday and know nothing about original cobras" camp rather than "I cant afford a real one but I'd like as close as possible to the original as I can". Even companies that sell lots of Cobras like Soverign cars only have 1 car with the correct dash layout within my budget and that has a Chrysler motor.
So, back to my conundrum. I have £25k - £40k for a 427 style dark blue car with stripes, single rollbar and authentic dash layout with a Ford motor. Not to much to ask if I lived in the US - I could pick up a car today.. but over here its taking me weeks and weeks to find something and its driving me mad!
My options seem to be:
- Crendon (these look great and I know they are superbly built but there are few used examples around)
- Gardener Douglas (well built and raced etc I know BUT rear end design, underslung pipes and dash layout on most cars is NOT authentic)
- Hawk? Rarely anything 427 style seems to come up for sale
- An authentic styled DAX (does one even exist?)
I'm sure I'm not the only one in the position that they can't afford £220k for a real 60s 427 (see Piston Heads) but has a good budget of £30k-40k and wants an authentic styled 427. I don't even want something too different - just the classic blue/stripes/427 style. Look on any eBay auto site and there are countless cars within my budget - where are all the equivalent UK cars with authentic dashes?? I appreciate I can't get an alumninium bodied Kirkham etc within my budget but I should be able to get a fiberglass bodied authentic styled car within my budget as making a car look authentic on the dash etc is not difficult.
Superperformance seems to be a great option over there within the £30k range and they are the only company to produce authentic looking cars - any chance a UK builder will start selling ready made cars from them or at least a range of authentic styled cars?
If anyone has the sort of car I'm looking for and would consider selling, please PM me. I have cash waiting for the right Cobra that is authentically styled!
Why such poor choice in UK??
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