Pix posted
 

Finally got around to posting some photos of car in gallery. Will try to put a couple more in shortly. Hope y'all like 'em.

Jack,
your car looks great. Are those corbeau seats? Nice package you have put together. Do you ever go to the Vienna Inn on Saturday mornings for the CACC breakfast? I would love to see your car some time.

Rob

Thanks for the complements. Believe it or not, those are factory CR seats! Snug, and comfy. I just had them recovered by a local auto upholstry shop with an upgraded vinyl, and that red cloth. I hate vinyl on my butt, particularly black vinyl. Burns and sticks in summer, freezes and slides in winter. Takes forever to dry if it gets wet. Cloth is not hot & sticky in summer, not freezing in winter, and dries in about an hour if it gets wet. Looks like a factory car.

Have never made it to Vienna. Too early for me. Missed all '04 events, but likely will start making some CACC '05 gatherings. So you'll see it.

SUPERB!!! GREAT looking cobra! I love your dash layout!

Excalibur had the same basic seats. I've sat in a lot of replicas and have yet to find seats as good as the C.R. design.

Cloth? Hmmmm,,, you do make a strong case for that, I would have done leather, and possibly missed the boat in doing so!

I like leather, in air conditioned coupes, just not convertibles. Rain soaked leather is nasty.

Excalibur is a copy of a CR. How's that for a left handed complement. Different companies. Exc only sold turn keys, and were quite pricey (Base price ~$53,000). CR sold very few turn keys, mostly promotional.

Dash is my own creation, sort of. Set up similar to a TR-4 I had years ago. I like wood dashes on a sports car, and do veneering. Like instruments, and controls where I can see them, and find them. Even in the dark. (Tach no good to me under my knee, and speedo no good to me hidden behind steering wheel.) And a Ford ignition switch that uses a Ford (not suitcase) key.

There are a lot of non-stock things on this car. It's a Sports Car, not a Race Car, well for me anyway.

Custom fan to radiator brackets. Custom clutch cable. Custom engine, dash, and rear wiring harness. Custom motor/frame mounts. Power steering that works. Front suspension that stays aligned. Heater/defroster that works. Ididit steering column w/Borgeson lower column w/vibration damper. 4 wheel power disk brakes. Sidepipe heat shields that look good, and work. Reasonably decent exhaust. 17" wheels & tires that look factory. Locking, theft resistant gas cap. And a removable luggage rack from an MGB that's handy on trips.

Will share mechanicals with anyone interested.

Lotta work, but a fun car. Like owning my own roller coaster.

Ha ha, I guess it is a left handed compliment. As I understand it a C.R. engineer left that company and went to work for Exaclibur developing their new "replica". It's no accident it is a virtual carbon copy. Rumor has it there were some fierce law suits going around early on, but nothing came of it. Mostly I suspect because management at C.R. was to busy fighting amongst themselves at the time!

Fine car the Excal, in fact I DROVE IT TODAY! I'm close friends with the guy I sold it to. Still love that car!

Nice job, Jack!

What is your coolant recovery jug from? I like the cap coming off the side.

Dwain

Hello Dwain, coolant recovery jug is $12 off-the-shelf Trak Auto small car coolant recovery system. Coolant expands and contracts as it heats and cools. Since there is no air in the cooling system, the recovery bottle lets the cooling system "breathe" about a half quart. And, no coolant on the garage floor.

Excal, Blackjack in CACC owns an Excaliber. Black, 302, auto, hardtop, WITH air conditioning. Nice car. The doors are a little different. A lot of key people were bailing or getting laid off from CR when they were being bought out the first time in '91. The Excal would have done far better with more competitive prices, and bigger engines like todays SPF. Like CR's, they're solidly built cars and should hold up for years. CACC calls my CR the Caddilac of Cobras because it has more "Real Car" stuff in it. But no air conditioning, Ha. Ha.