How/Why did you end up with a Cobra?

[Carroll DeWeese]

We live less than two short blocks from Woodward Avenue: home of the Dream Cruise. We are about five short blocks from where the Great Lakes Cobra Club shows their cars during the Dream Cruise. Even since the first Dream Cruise, my wife and I go look at cars and, by a process of elimination, pick the one that we like best. For years, it has been the Cobra.

I work for General Motors. For over 20 years, I drive whatever GM supplies me as an evaluation vehicle. I do not even own a car. Most of the cars and trucks that I drive, my wife calls "breadbaskets" or some similiar term. She is also spoiled from having cars loaded with all the options. For my first 15 years at GM, my wife (who is legally blind and can not drive) was so uninterested in cars that she did not know the vehicle divisions of GM. The first time she saw a Cobra at the Dream Cruise, however, she fell in love at first sight.

For years, we regarded getting a Cobra as an unreachable, impractical dream. Dave Hill, the Chief Engineer, for Corvette is a friend of ours. Compared to a Cobra, a Corvette is very practical. I can get even get the Corvette with an employe discount. Yet my wife and I loved the shape and feel of the Cobra compared to the Corvette. We started to talk to the Cobra owners and really liked their friendliness and openness.

We finally decided that when I retire, we will need a practical vehicle. That means that if we have another vehicle, it does not have to be practical. It can be something that we love and is fun.

I told my wife that if she could balance our budget to get the Cobra, we should get one. Next thing you know, we are getting rides from Great Lakes Cobra Club members and we are making choices. I have learned more about vehicle mechanics in this quest than I ever knew before.

Our getting a Cobra is strictly a matter of love. It makes no rational sense. It is out of character for a normally very pragmatic person.

By the way, Club Cobra has been extreemly helpful in this quest. Thank you Brent.