Advice for a New Buyer

[Antny]

First hand experience, although not a Cobra; a few years ago I bought a ground up every nut and bolt freshly restored '67 Vette in Maryland and decided to drive it home to NY. Only a 5-hour drive up I-95, piece of cake, right? Whelp.....an hour into the trip on I-95, the car suddenly dies. No electrics, nada. Dead as a stone. I get a $300 tow to a nearby service station where they diagnose the problem... after 2 hours of diagnoses.... the tech says it's a faulty alternator, and he charges the battery. Another $400 bill. I'm back on the road and it's now dusk. After another hour on the road and pitch black darkness on the Garden State Parkway (parkway is not lit), same thing happens....total electrical system failure, car dies in the middle of the parkway. Lucky for me there was no one behind me...image if there were? I might not be here typing out this drivel. Thankfully I didn't get rear-ended and I had just enough momentum to pull off the road onto the service shoulder. Get another tow, this time to my house. Pay another $600 bill!!!!!! So a 5-hour fantasy drive turned into a $1300, 12 hour drive from hell. A uhaul transport would have cost me only $130.

After a few days of searching, I found the real problem: a loose main power feed to the fuse box. 10 minutes with a soldering iron and the problem was fixed forever. So the moral to the story: I don't care how perfectly built or restored I think a new-to-me car is...if it's more than only a few miles away, it gets transported home.