Bill & Ernie Elliot 1965 Cobra Roadster $160k

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by FIA-ERA

It's a great looking car, BUT... This dealership does have some really great looking cars. I remember one 67 GT500 they advertised a while back for some insane price. Well, I saw that car being restored locally. While not to bad of a resto job, it looked absolutely incredible online! It was not as spotless as it was online. If you saw what kinda surgery this car went through too, you would have never paid what they wanted either!

I like the Nascar/ Bill Elliott theme. Being a Ga. native and also a former as a Nascar mechanic, I like it. BUT, I've been to Ernie's shop and seen these motors just laying around like a crop of mushrooms. The last time I was up there he had over 65 complete Dodge motors from a Nascar team that had just folded. Now if I could figure out how to shove one of those motors in a Cobra, GEEZ! Anyway, the point is these motors are a dime a dozen and are probably built with left over parts from the day. Not bad stuff but also nothing new like the Dodge motors or current Ford stuff. Also, with a drive sump motor we would ALWAYS take the front belt off and prelub the motor BEFORE starting. I didn't notice an accusump system (maybe I missed it). Those motors can actually wipe lobes and bearings out when trying to start with out the oil in the pan! It's a long way for the oil to come from all the way in the trunk. I agree too, these motors won't last you 10K miles either. It's even got a Jerico tranny. Now, that's pretty slick but again on the street it wouldn't last long. You really need to have oil coolers/ with pumps on those boxes to keep them from blowing up too. Ernie has an incredible shop with a huge parts dept. It's been a long time since these motors were in there hey day! It's cool but I'd rather have one of Cashburn's Cobra's with the Coyote motor!! Regards, Matt

You are so right, you also need to heat the oil before you build pressure, those things are very much like F1 and Indy car in terms of clearances, do it wrong and you ruin your engine. Ernie was never in the same league as Robert Yates or even Roush when they were all building separately. He got his reputation from the time they were running Clevelands in the narrow T-birds that had a leg up on everybody as did Bill, on an even playing field they weren't that good. I would highly doubt 860 on a calibrated dyno and yes, you can bet there are no really up to date parts in that engine. I saw one of the used Yates Pre FR9 Ford engines on a dyno a couple of months ago it it was around 830 with a cam you could not drive on the street.