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Who made the first cobra replica
And in what year. Does that car still exist?
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Dunno..........BUTT........
....it may have been Steve Arntz in the late '70's. This company later was taken over by Ron Butler---there was a long run of Butlers which followed. Still, there may have been earlier companies.....Unique? All I know is Arntz is considered a (the?) pioneer cobra replica-builder.:cool:
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I would venture it is Unique Motorcars, which has been making replicas since 1977. After that, I know of the AC Mark IV's sold in the 1980's through Ford dealerships. They have a 302 carbureted engine, no sidepipes (under car exhaust), 5MPH bumpers, side marker lights, 3-point harnesses, and center mounted fuel filler like the 289 FIA cars.
Bill |
I forgot about the Arntz and Butler cars. I know of one Arntz car in Southern Cal. It has a SBC in it.
BD |
FIRST REPLICA
AS far as the "first" it is hard to say there have been cars made from various parts and sources all thru the 70s. But as far as the
first advertised replica I have to say ARNTZ , with there bad a$$ 12 inches rims tucked inside the rear wheel wells. thanks DEAN |
first replica manufacturer
Fred,
The FIRST manufacturer would be Tim Fighur, who built over a 100 COBRA replicas by 1972, advertised widely in magazines, flyers, car shows, and not a singular type builder. grumpy |
Never heard of a Fighur cobra...
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My father built a cobra in 1982/1983. all he remembers is 'picking up the frame and body at some dump in nebraska'..I think he said the guys name was "Dino". I have an album of photos that I will post.
It had jag running gear. blake |
someone posted a list a while back of all of the manufactures and when they begin. being a computer retard i haven't been abel to locate it. anyone here able to bring it up?
paul |
Here's a link to some Cobra history. I don't know if it's accurate or not, but it seems that alot of work was put into it.
http://www.cobratrader.com/cobrahistory.html |
great job jopper! thats the on that i was thinking off.
paul |
meatisms are not facts!
fellas,
Watch out that you get facts infected with meatisms. He insists to this day that ARNTZ was the "father", "pioneer", "founder", "originator", and dozens of other paraphrases for the first replica COBRA, builder. Just a person he had been told as being the first, once Meat was sold on the fact, it became just that, a "meatism". The time line he shares is a 80% or so actual timeline of facts for the same reasons. We all fall prey to the "tales of yore", no ones fault, lawyers win huge cases on the lack of facts and peoples re-running of memories. It's also much easier to agree as disagree since proving such takes a bit of effort. CowTown, Tim of ALLIED FIBERGLASS and the year 1968. Several bodies actually adorned old wrecked out COBRA's until the values of them rose to allow for shipments of panels from ACltd/UK. Lost facts reminds me of the CORVACE that raced in the 1957/8 era and kicked ole' Shels butt in his MASER for various laps on the SCCA/USSRC circuits where they crossed, but SHELBY has been sold as having the "first" idea of American Iorn in a AC, not so, by track records and pics. grumpy |
Thanks Grump. This all makes for fascinating reading...:D
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I have a Cobra Restorers catalog from 1999. If this is true or not I don't know, I'm only sharing what I have.
On page 2 of their catalog is this paragraph: "Replica Cobras marketed today trace their lineage back to either Steve Arntz, who designed the Arntz Cobra, or the Allied Fiberglass Cobra body sold by Dean Morrison. Both of these bodies were "splashed" from the body of an original Cobra, complete with all the "warts" of the original. To our knowledge, no one has built a new 427 plug from scratch. |
"splashes"
jopper,
There were three COBRA 427' that were splashed in 1968, ALLIED having done one of those. The other two were also splashed for various "one offs" and "replica" reasons for damaged or "air" cars as some persued at the time. No one until my brother and I built a plug from scratch in 1972 and another for a wide/lwb body that customers wanted to utilize vette suspension. Photographs and company documents back this up for that time frame, see if you can get someone to supply anything earlier. I doubt it, this has came up many times over the years including being "meat" slapped several times on this issue, no showdown on photos/documents happened, since he or his sources just couldn't come up with them. Our plugs came off of hundreds of measurements from the likes of CSX3272 and many others. George wouldn't let you even think of "molding off a pristine car. Body shops of that era were the biggest culprits at "splashing" when a car was damaged and in their shop. Often wondered where others came up with their molds, just overcopying was the normal name of the game. grumpy |
grumpy
I congratulate you on building a plug from scratch. Could you please educate me as to how you do that. I'm not being smart I really want to know. |
The Metamorphosis of a Cobra
Another one to consider is the Stallion, made by Silver Classic Coachcraft in 1979. The replicas were road tested and actually were designed for racing. Brooklands Books has a book aptly titled "Cobras & Replicas" 1962 - 1983. The three page story/review and photo shoot was done by Dennis Alder. Back when the book was published, the only advertised heavy hitters were ERA and Contempory and they compete with an original AC in a road test. Pretty cool stuff. |
Was fiber fab an early "kit"?
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I too have read a few times in different places that (Allied Industries) was actually the first Cobra replica manufaturer. They supposedly also produced the first replica GT40 replica in 1967.
Quote from a TotalKit car article: "Allied Industries who also had the distinction of being the first Cobra replica manufacturers too although it was very basic and very crude and could only be deemed a replica if you closed one eye and squinted" |
In the link provided by jopper, I looked eagerly for the lineage of my kit car and didn't find it. It is a Cardiac Cobra 427SC kit and was built in Vancouver (I think), Canada over 10 years ago. The car only had a few thousand miles when I bought it earlier this year and I would really like to know if anyone else has one of these. Does anybody have any information about Cardiac Cobras, Ltd?
Paul |
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