How did you choose the color of your cobra?

[slithering]

It's about time for me to paint the cobra. How did you pick your color and why? Stripes or no stripes?

slithering

[blykins]

I look at lots and lots of pictures....I agreed that I would stay with the original colors....so that narrows it down. I've also looked at a lot of Cobras in person....I myself wouldn't go with stripes...like I said, I like to be original....and even though blue with white stripes looks pretty good, 75% of the Cobras out there are this combo....

[MACOBRA]

Slithering

I wanted to be alittle different. All the cobras I have seen were either blue/yellow/bright red/gray/black/white. I liked the idea of red, so I went with a darked red (2004 corvette red).

I far as I am concerned, stripes are a must for a cobra. They really scream about its past history. Everybody remembers the look. They also complete the appearance.

disclaimer (This is just my opinion)

Good luck with your color choice!

MACOBRA

[Mike Hausner]

I've always liked silver cars. Seeing Ford's new Cobra was the clincher. For the Cobra I thought I'd try to make the car look like aluminum but I settled on GM's Galaxy Silver with pearl white stripes. There are pictures in my gallery - take a look.

[John Poling]

I selected my color combo based on I like red and my wife likes silver. When I bought my pile of parts, the guy had already started down the path of it being silver. I personally don't care for silver as the main color as it would've drowned out all the chrome and stainless items. He had the Comp's powder coated the red and I didn't want to pay the $$$ to have them redone so I matched as close as possible to the wheel color. I also didn't want a custom mixed color because of the possibilty of paint repair in the future. What I ended up with is 1997 Toyota Supra Performance Red and 2001 Mercedes silver stripes. The color combo works great and I constantly get comments about the rich looking red and how it pulls out the rounded beauty of the curves of the body.

John

[Art Burtt]

I have a 1981 Ford P/U that is Wimbleton White with gold striping.
Painted Cobra to match it. Turned out pretty nice!

[DonC]

I decided on "some kind of red" early on but had no idea which red. Looked at a lot of pictures, cruised a lot of dealerships and looked at a lot of cars on the road. Finally came up with what I thought would be a good red from some of the photos here on CC and queried the owners as to color and opinions about them. The clincher was when I took the wife to look at some cars at a local dealership and, without prompting other than "look at the reds" she picked the same color I had.
The color is a 2003/2004 Ford stock color called Red Fire Pearl Mettalic Clear Coat (quite a mouthful).
Once that was decided I started in on the stripe color. I had decided on gold but again, which one. There are tons of them. Did a web search for paint color codes and chips and ended up with about 8 different golds. Went to the dealerships and got bottles of touchup paint in each color, also a touchup bottle of the red.
Got out my cheapie air brush and shot a small panel with the primary red and then painted small strips of heavy paper with each of the golds and held them against the base color panel. Narrowed it down to 2 and again asked the wife. Again, her opinion matched the color I was inclined towards so that was the color selected for the stripe. GM Mettalic Gold.
The whole process took place over a 3 or 4 month period.
Since I'm not going for the pure original look it opened up a lot more choices for color which can be good or bad depending on how decisive you are by nature.
The car should be picked up from ERA the end of this week and go over to Walt Wasko Jr. for the paint. Will be there for 4 weeks once he gets started which may be a week or more after it gets there. Art in CT (RedSC400) has offered to take some photos of the car while in production so I'll be able to post some as it goes along. Am waiting with baited breath for the final outcome.
DonC

[RedBarchetta]

I've had a blue hot rod ('70 Camaro Z-28), a black hot rod ('93 Corvette) but I've always had the hots for red. Listen to the song and lyrics of "Red Barchetta" by Rush for the real roots to my inspiration for owning and driving a red Cobra. To me, any other color just wouldn't be the same. But I have to admit that there are SEVERAL other color combinations that I have seen here that have caught my eye. But RED I remain.

-Deano

[anchor2]

I guess I'm not very original. When I purchased my SPF out of Dynamic they had cars with all the colors in the back. I really went with the one that made me the most excitied. It was royal blue with white stripes. I have never been unhappy with the choice.

[davidlee]

For me it was easy. Nothing shines like black{nor is as hard to keep clean} but I went with black with silver stripe.

[bittentoo]

Well, I've always done things a little different than most other folks and my cobra would be too. Since I decided to put a cleveland in it, there wasn't any point in trying to stay with the original colors. My favorite color is red, and the blues, silvers and blacks all look great on cobras. But, I decided to take a chance and paint mine orange with white stripes. Not just any orange, it is a Lamborgini color and knocks your socks off! It has a white base coat and the bright orange has gobs of gold metal flake in it.
From bright sun to dark it will change about three different colors.

The way I picked this color was by looking through the PPG paint book at my local auto parts. When I came to this color I knew that I had found what I had been looking for. Bruce Bunn in Atlanta painted the car and loved the color so much that he recomended it to a buddy that is building a street rod.

I've posted a few picks of the car here and on other forums but the computer monitors don't do this color justice.

[Slither]

I chose blue to match my 2002 ZO6 Corvette.

[MidOHasp]

Saw a titanium SPF at DVSF II and said "that's the one". It had pinstripes on it, too. To me, it was the most beautiful car there. To some, it's a real common color. To others, they hate silver.

The car looks good in primer. It looks really cool in bare aluminum. It looks good muddy (well, I'm sure it would).

Pick the color that you think will make you look back over your shoulder the most as you are walking away from your Cobra. Whatever you pick you will be happy. You will occasionally see one and go "oooh, that looks cool" and that's fine - cause most of 'em do.

JP

[mg2166]

First I made a mental note of every color combination I saw locally and removed them from my potential list. As good as the Cobra looks in blue with white stripes, I didn't want to blend in with the crowd. After deciding on yellow with black stripes, I then looked at a lot of new yellow cars trying to make a decision, but I just couldn't find the yellow I wanted. My painter suggested Bright Yellow out of the European Ford paint book, and I was ready to paint.

[NeedAntiVenom]

Slithering,

I took me a long time and a lot of looking to narrow it down. I started by looking at all the high end car makers - bmw, porsche, ferrari, lamborghini, jaguar, etc., hoping to find an unusual color. I was looking at greens a lot but just didn't find the one that really clicked. Then I stumbled on a great burgundy aston martin color. Whatever you choose get a sample made.

Here is a good reference for color codes:

http://www.autocolorlibrary.com

Best of Luck

[RallySnake]

Slithering,

Red is the color of passion. Itialian cars and Cobras are the most passionately designed cars. But which red. There are so many.

After months of looking at red cars, I was at the Pomona swap meet and saw a beautiful 355 Spider. The Russo red was spectacular. I did not realize how orange the color is until I parked next to a red Cobra at the Sandwich Shop at the Ventura Cobra meet. Now I understand why the color pops like it does.

I can't get into stripes. I guess I'm too old (but I still like loud rock and roll!).

The beast is getting pretty beat up now. After 4 years of rallies, an off road excursion, a set of Hoosiers and a cross country trip, it's full of dings and scratches and nicks. It's almost time to do it again. That new Honda red is looking very good.

Paul

[Doug Axelrod]

I went to the first Spring Fling and looked and looked and took a ton of pictures. I also talked to folks about what they liked and didn't like about their cars.

I thought black was beautiful, but I'm not compulsive enough to keep it as clean as necessary to stay beautiful.

I chose titanium with black stripe because I thought it showed off the curves. I chose black pipes and rollbar to set off the titanium.

If I had it to do over again, I'd take a long thought about dark red, no stripes.

Enjoy!

[RallySnake]

Doug,

I just donated my '94 Altima to charity. The car was too dangerous. It was dark red (almost candy apple) and evidently invisible to other drivers. I was in four accidents with that car and had many near misses. People just kept running into it or pulling out right in front of me. So if you go with that color, drive with your headlights on and put flame throwers in your sidepipes!

Paul

[REAL 1]

Picked from the original colors offered. Picked black as its the most sinister and matches the Cobras personality and character best.

[Ron61]

I wanted something different from most others and also something that doesn't show this dust we have up here so bad. I have two solid color cars and you can see the dust a block away. So I went with white and a red stripe. The replica can be covered in dust and you won't notice it. Nothing at all original or snister about it but I don't have to wipe it off all the time.

Ron