How did you finance your Cobra?

[MilwDoug]

Back in 1997, my Dentist who is a good friend got loaned a factory demo Excalibur Cobra by Jens Geitlinger, the owner of the company, who happened to be a patient. He had it for the entire July 4th weekend.

I was out of town most of the weekend, but when I got back, there was a message on the machine to come over to take this great car out for the evening. It was a beautiful summer night, and I tooled around in it with him for about 4 hours, and HAD to have that car. Having owned a Tiger in the past, I had been a big Cobra fan for years, and just fell in love with this car. It was red with white stripes, handled great, had great pipes, sounded just right, and good power. It had to be mine.

I came up with a great financing plan. My business car, a 94 Impala SS was just about paid for, was running great and only had about 90,000 miles on it. I figured I would sell my 65 Bonneville Convertible for the down payment, drive the SS 3 more years, take a loan on the Cobra, and in three years, it would be paid for. Effect on cash flow, zero. Essentially the car was free.

So I got home that night and told my wife I was buying the Excalibur. Naturally she asked how much it was, and I explained that it was free! Of course that required a bit more explanation. The car was $33,000 but from a cash flow standpoint, it was free!!

I will never understand women's inability to understand basic logic when it comes to financing, especially when it comes to the purchase of classic automobiles that obviously have no way to go in value but up, up, up.

Unfortunately, I was not able to convince her that it was a good investment, and had to pass on the car.

But I had the fever and started searching the web, checking out Excaliburs and all the other kit cars. I think I even saw Ernie's Excalibur for sale in Hawaii.

Fast forward 2 years. I had just survived a big health scare involving a tumor in my spine that conveniently disappeared just prior to surgery. 4th of July weekend again and we are returning from a vacation in Northern Wis. We stopped at a Classic Car store, and there in the showroom, I swear, shrouded in a faint glow that must have come from the heavens, was a beautiful Black 1996 Excalibur Cobra with 3000 miles on it.

I looked at my wife and said I was buying it. She said wait a minute, we don't even know if you'll be alive in a year. I said that's right, so it may be now or never. End of argument.

And the best thing was, my original plan worked. I loved that Impala SS so much, I was still driving it, then with about 150,000 miles on it.

Fast forward 3 more years to the present. The Excalibur is paid for, just sold the Impala SS for $5,100 with 262,000 miles on it (man do those cars hold their value) and I still have my Bonneville to boot. My health is fine too, but if I had died it would have taken the mortician a week to get the smile off my face.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the long version of how I financed my Cobra.