Why do you own a Cobra?

[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.