Help a semi-starving student out
 

Hello everyone,

My name is Will and I'm a Doctoral student at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve here in Ohio. As part of this program I was required to declare a minor that had at least a loose association to my major. In addition to my thesis I'm required to submit a capstone paper for the minor.

Not to oversimplify things, but my capstone will be exploring how replicas/knockoffs/copies can help build a strong brand for the original. And as I've held a long fascination with Mr. Shelby and his products (except for that God-awful chili) I've chosen the Shelby Cobra as my main example.

If anyone can spare the time I would really appreciate it if you could help out a fellow enthusiast and semi-starving student out by answering a few simple - and completely anonymous - questions.

What I'd like to know is why you chose the brand of replica you did.

In addition to this I'd also like to know what considerations came into play to support the decision. I'm looking for things like cost, authenticity (or lack thereof), chance to work with a particular manufacturer and/or finishing agent, the challenge of the build, and so on. I'm also interested in those intangible things that drove the decision. Did one make speak to you more than any other? If so, why? Did Shelby licensing affect your decision? Did you scratch-build? If so, why? I'm basically looking for why you went the way you did in regards to the purchase of a roller or kit.

Or did none of this really matter and you just wanted to build/own/drive something that most people don't have the cajones to own, maintain, and operate?

If it helps in any way in answering (and thank you in advance if you chose to do so) my capstone will be exploring in part how replicas/counterfeits and so on communicate the fact that even those who don't have the means will do what they can to obtain a dream, and how that psychological response drives and strengthens the original brand. Yes, that is a major oversimplification, but believe me you'd be bored to death in reading the proposal for the thing.

Now, for those that do take the time (again, thank you) I am not at all interested in the small block vs. FE argument, real vs. replica, or any of that really. There's ample enough threads already. Just why you went the direction you did.

Lastly, if anyone would be willing to share how their appreciation for these cars began, it would go a long way in helping to flesh out my preamble; i.e. pad the crap out of. I have found several threads that do this, but its mostly a handful or a single forum member doing so in an unrelated topic.

Who knows? There may be a lively discussion hiding in here somewhere.

Thanks for your time, and if there's a way to do it I'd be more than happy to post the final paper, or at least a link to it, if anyone would be interested.

/r

Will

Send me a PM with your email address or phone number and I'll share with you all my motivations, rationales, and experiences.

I'm absolutely positive that if I wrote to answer all of your questions [which are open ended and require thought and an essay], that I would have written your paper for you, and it would take me about two weeks or longer. So when people who are looking to do 60 hours of research ask me to do 3 or 4 hours of work to respond, and the info is already here, my response is: Why don't you read some of the topics in this forum? Really, everything you've asked about has been discussed many times here.

That's a pretty big subject to squeeze into a series of opinions. Maybe you could cut it down to a few questions to get the ball rolling.

There's a wide variety of owners who own for different reasons. Some are Hot Rodders and some are true Cobra enthusiasts who own because they can't swing the million dollars plus for an original. For me, I've spent my entire life around sports cars and fell in love with Cobras. The leaf spring models are my passion and Cobra 427's (and their replications) are neat but don't interest me that much. I'm an originalist when it comes to replicas ...and original cars for that matter. I can also tell you that most current original cars are not very original now. But that are originals, no matter how much they've been altered over time.
I'm not the "average" replica owner, rather I'm kind of a freak for originality. A true oddball! So my opinions may vary from the mainstream replica owner.
But that's why you're here, right?
Larry

A Quick Reply:
1/ Why - fell in love with Cobras as a petrol head teen watching Bobby Olthoff drive them at Killarney Race Track in Cape Town South Africa. - became my dream car.
2/ Missed opportunity to buy an original in 1972 in my early 20's
3/ Originals became unaffordable and unobtainable in South Africa so bought one of the first kits available in South Africa in my mid 30's even though I couldn't really afford that.
4/ Took almost 7 years to build because of affordability issues. (Was also dinghy racing at championship level at the time)
5/ Love it because to my mind I am experiencing something very similar to what driving an original would feel like and because of the positive reaction of onlookers of all ages.
6/ Originality is totally unimportant to me - I want the car to reflect my likes and dislikes but stay true to the feel of the 60's.
7/ I believe that replicas drive the love of the brand for generation who never experienced the originals and would be unlikely to ever see them but instantly like them when seeing and hearing them on the road.

It's an interesting concept for a thesis and/or syllabus, however, to come in here with the story of being a starving student "just looking to do research for a paper", then throwing around a jaded word such as "counterfeits" seems to me that there is something else underlying within your request that seems a bit nefarious.

So, with that said, exactly who are you?
What division of the college are you studying within?
What class and professor or adjunct has approved such a paper?
What are you hopes and exasperation once this paper is published, and where do you hope for it to be published after the college level?
Finally, where do you see yourself in 10 years?


Will await your detailed response and we can take things from there.

With the last post in my mind and the amount of work I had to do for my thesis, I might wonder more about the question.

Are you not running with a null hypothesis with structured tests for a synopsis?

Although this might be fun to read from a nostalgic memory point of view, I can not see how this would allow quantative methods to be used for a proper paper.

Just my opinion.

Tru

One post wonder that probably won't be back.

I would think the a better approach to the subject of Fake vs Original would be with current brands competing against knockoffs. Watches, handbags, Apple phones, etc. Not a cast in gold brand original Cobras that has no real competitor except it self, with only tributes to a Classic (not in production) product.

Mark