Why do you own a Cobra?

[FST FOX]

Thought this would be an interesting topic. I came under fire with close friends because I don't want to do the Tx mile, an airfeild event or go to the drag strip all the time. So if I leave out your reason just add it to the post or tell your story.

[Jamo]

...my ass won't fit in an MG.

[FST FOX]

In 2004 I was hired at Victory Motors (Tx's Backdraft dealer at the time) by Boudy, I fell in love with these cars even more so, John R got my blood pumping 1st. yes my car is quick maybe even fast in some standards but alot of my friends are on this TT Viper kick and all about how fast they can go or how much they Dyno. I am focused on my career 1st and sometimes can't make track days and honestly am scared of the possibilties with these cars especially when pushing it to the extreme, but I guess it's good having some fear in an all fiberglass car with almost no safty equipment. I started wondering why i bought it, it's simple I love the heritage and wow factor and yes it's quick and could be faster but I am not out to prove any point just out to have fun.

[Jamo]

OK...semi-seriously. I always thought they were cool while watching them race in the 60s, but never thought about actually owning one. I liked Chevys. Much later (late 70s), I started being flown around in a client's plane by his pilot...a guy named Dick Smith. Most of the time just the two of us for 2-3 hours each way, so I'd sit in the co-pilot's seat and have to listen to him talking about freeking Cobra this and freeking Cobra that. Sucker never repeated a story.

Later, I moved up to Vettes for autocrossing and some open track, and he'd keep giving me crap about that. We had a class called Open Street Prepared in the San Francisco Region, so for my next car, I figured I'd try a Cobra. This was in the 90s. Dick couldn't be happier...guess he figured I finally got religion, and he was my exorcist. I didn't mind...I started winning events, so I became a believer and I appreciated how durable and easy they were to work on for the minor suspension tuning and stuff I did.

Then I found this place, met a displaced Mongolian, an albino Afrikan and a spooky glider pilot, and we all went and visited some strange folks in Provo. Saw a stack of bare arruminum bodies, and that sorta did it.

I appreciate the swiss army knife character of it. Unlike hot roads, you can drive these basturds around corners, and yet they still turn heads. Unlike a vintage Ferraghini, they're easy to fix and yet they're still exotic. Unlike Hogs, my wifey can sit next to me and yet they make as much noise.

I'll keep it now just to piss Evan off when he sees my name in the Doomsday Book along with his.

[LoBelly]

its the vibe

LoBelly

[eschaider]

It's a 40 year old love affair with a car I could have bought new and didn't. In retrospect the decision to buy the Street Hemi was probably a better move from a daily driver point of view. The Cobra would have been far less suitable as a daily driver but far more satisfying as a mental adjustment machine each time you did drive it.

Ed

<edited for bad english>

[Silverback51]

In 1967 (I was 16 at the time) I got to drive an original Cobra and I was in love, or maybe lust since that time. Needless to say I could not afford one at that time and as I grew older they eventually got out of the price range I could afford.

Then about 8 years ago I started doing my research for a kit car Cobra. That is when I found out about the Superformance Cobra and decided that was what I wanted. Well with work, home and family issues it took me 8 years to finally get around to buying one, and I love it.

So, for me it's the heritage and what the car represents that I love.

[Naumoff]

The rawl power of a big block wrapped in the sexy body of a little roadster.
It is a driver's car. Built to drive not to sit in a parking lot.
Definately an emotional experience.

[Joe Wicked]

Well, I don't have one, yet. I have made the commitment to myself that I will get one, and I am working towards it now. I would say the reason, I want one is more related to my love of the car. When I was 10, there was a Cobra in a local parade where I grew up. At the car show after the parade, I got a close up of the car. Just the sound of raw power was enough for me to love it, but when the guy let me sit in the car and then later took me for a ride, I can't really describe how I felt. I said that 1 day I will have one of these. I gave up on that dream 10 years later because of the price. I never considered "Kit Cars" as they were "rattle traps" and all the other BS. Now that I have matured a bit, and have seen the kits/rollers up close, I realized that was not the truth and now here I am, with my dream back alive and desperately trying to get mine.

[Silverback51]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

Well, I don't have one, yet. I have made the commitment to myself that I will get one, and I am working towards it now. I would say the reason, I want one is more related to my love of the car. When I was 10, there was a Cobra in a local parade where I grew up. At the car show after the parade, I got a close up of the car. Just the sound of raw power was enough for me to love it, but when the guy let me sit in the car and then later took me for a ride, I can't really describe how I felt. I said that 1 day I will have one of these. I gave up on that dream 10 years later because of the price. I never considered "Kit Cars" as they were "rattle traps" and all the other BS. Now that I have matured a bit, and have seen the kits/rollers up close, I realized that was not the truth and now here I am, with my dream back alive and desperately trying to get mine.

Don't give up your dream. I damn near did. It's one of those things I believe would have haunted me to my grave everytime I would have seen one of these cars.

[Joe Wicked]

Originally Posted by Silverback51

Don't give up your dream. I damn near did. It's one of those things I believe would have haunted me to my grave everytime I would have seen one of these cars.

I gave it up at one time resigning myself to never having one because i could never afford one. If I had not done that, and had worked at getting one, I would have one now, but since I am back on track, I will have one, one day.

[fsstnotch]

Much like Joe, I've wanted one my whole life! I've always wanted a cobra and a Grabber blue Boss 429. #1 Cobra, close #2 Boss 429! Fulfilling #1 now will maybe allow me to work up and save for #2 later in life! But I need "to be able to hang up the keys that last time and say, I DID IT!"

The Grabber blue Boss 429 is the insiration behind the paint scheme I'd like to use on my cobra, Grabber blue with all black accents.

[sideoiler10]

The first Cobra I saw was back in 1963 (a lifetime ago). My buddies and I were driving north on Lindberg Blvd in St. Louis on our way to the old Alton Dragway in Alton, IL. At a stop light, up pulled a blue Ford pickup towing a blue open trailer hauling a blue 289 Cobra. It was a dealership owned race car from Yates-Stevens Ford in St. Louis. I had never seen a Cobra up until that time but I knew what it was from a few magazines I had read.

From that point on, I was hooked on the looks and the concept. But being a newly married guy trying to start a family, I could only dream about maybe someday. After all the kids were on their own and after retirement, I was able to again focus on a Cobra.:

For me, I guess it is several reasons. First, the lines on a 427 SC are unlike the lines on any other car, ever. Smooth and flowing, yet muscular almost to the point of being obnoxious. You can tell by looking that the car was built for one thing, to go fast and handle like a skateboard. The idea that the Cobra 427 SC was the first car to be branded as "the fastest production car ever produced" is a grabber also. But mostly, when you shoe horn yourself behind the wheel and fire up that 600 HP 427 sideoiler; the car starts shaking from side to side while idling, and the roar from the almost open exhaust ticks off each cylinder as it fires...that says it all. That is one of the sweetest sounds a car guy will ever hear. I have never heard another car like that. Drag cars are great, but they only go straight (if you are lucky).

[boblyon1]

FST FOX - What a neat thread - I've really enjoyed reading all the stories.

For me, as a teen growing up in the Detroit suburbs, and with a father who formulated racing fuels, I spend a number of weekends watching jags, corvettes and ferraris race on a nearby track. Then, one day, in the mid sixties, a Cobra entered the field and began wiping the others off the track. It was both love and lust at first sight. What an amazing combination of power, nimbleness and beauty. Like others, I could not afford such a beast. Later, as a "responsible" family man, I could only drool over the snakes I saw on the road or in shows. My (now Ex) wife could never understand why I would roll down the car windows just to hear those side pipes. Even today, that sound brings back such fond memories.

Well, more than 40 years have past. The kids have flown the coop, the wife is gone and I'm retired. I started dreaming, researching, then test-driving Cobras about three months ago. I finally settled on a small block SPF, deciding that they seem to hold their value so well that I can probably sell it for about what I paid for it, if pressed for cash. Now that SPF 633 is in my garage, I still can't seem to wipe the S... E....... grin off my face. I find myself flipping on the light and opening the garage door at night just to look at this magnificent machine. I listen carefully, and sometimes it whispers, "I want to run". My neighbors think I'm crazy when I take it out for a short spin at midnight. Oh well, 18 again in a 62 year old body. What a rush. I WILL NOT have to go to my grave wishing and hoping, and I would encourage others to take the plunge. You WON'T be sorry!!

[Slick61]

well... being single (no kids, never married) and middle-aged, it is the ultimate mid-life crisis car. I'm the envy of almost every guy (and a few gals) in the office. My neighbors all come out to pay their respects when I come rumbling down the street, once they figured out what was causing all their windows to rattle.

THIS is my mistress... beautiful, sexy, loud, demanding, impossible to ignore, and capable of providing hours of pleasure...

[acecob]

I just love parking next to my brothers Ferrari and watching all the attention towards the cobra, its as if the Ferrari isn't there.
That says it all !

[jdog]

It was while walking by the local Ford dealership in LA one summers day in 1968 that I was to first see what has become a passion in my life; a cobra!
There in the window for all to see was the most decadent thing I had ever seen, an all black 427 cobra! It looked like "Darth Vader". the baddest car killing machine in the universe!
A few years later while hitch-hiking along PCH Pacific Coast Highway (please don't tell my mother) I was given a ride in a 289. It is by that 10 min ride & the above mentioned image, that all other cars in my life have been judged.
I've had a Porsche turbo and a few other fast cars, they were all just substitutes for my Cobra. This is the pinnacle for me, there's nothing 'up' from here.

jdog
P.S. Still looks like Darth Vader to me!

[Allan A]

So I could pass J Dog!

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

Originally Posted by jdog

It was while walking by the local Ford dealership in LA one summers day in 1968 that I was to first see what has become a passion in my life; a cobra!
There in the window for all to see was the most decadent thing I had ever seen, an all black 427 cobra! It looked like "Darth Vader". the baddest car killing machine in the universe!
A few years later while hitch-hiking along PCH Pacific Coast Highway (please don't tell my mother) I was given a ride in a 289. It is by that 10 min ride & the above mentioned image, that all other cars in my life have been judged.
I've had a Porsche turbo and a few other fast cars, they were all just substitutes for my Cobra. This is the pinnacle for me, there's nothing 'up' from here.

jdog
P.S. Still looks like Darth Vader to me!

JDog says it all! This thing has been in the back of my mind since '66. Now it's here and it's black. Another month or so and it'll be up & runnin'. Absolutely the dream of a lifetime.

[JBCOBRA]

These cars are just soooooo much fun to drive!!! THAT is what does it for me.
They are the best Bang for the Buck in the automotive world, me thinks.
JB