Help with a Contemporary

[767Jockey]

I will add this....... a Contemporary is a fine car. I really like mine a lot. That said, you need to know how to fabricate. You need to know how to be resourceful. The reason for this is that it is an orphan. There is no company to turn to for parts and help, the company that built Contemporary is LOOOOONG gone. It is in my opinion one of the higher end owner built Cobras. Other opinions can, and likely will, vary. That said I would notch it in behind ERA, with Contemporary right behind them as far as kits go. Shelby, Kirkham, Backdraft and Superformance not included as they are not kit builds. The ERA is a better car (again, only this mans opinion) as it's had many years of subsequent design and development done on it in the time since Contemporary folded up and went away. I often wonder what the Contemporary Cobra would have been as a car now had they stayed in business and developed at the same pace as ERA.

That said, if you're not good with fab work and searching out alternate resources for parts and improvements to the kit supplied parts for your build, then this might not be the build for you. If that's the case and you still really want to build one yourself, you might want to take a look at Hurricane. Just throwing a dart off the top of my head they're about the most similar to the Contemporary. I've never personally seen a Unique but I'm told they're nice cars too. Of course there's ERA, but now you're at a significantly higher price point and from what I understand a 1 year plus wait for delivery of about the best kit out there. Most others are designed to be predominantly solid axle rear cars, and that's a whole nother ball game, if you want to go that route. Different strokes for different folks. Good luck in whatever you choose to do. Reach out if you have any specific questons on the Contemporary.

EDIT - One more thought. Overall budget wise, you're always better off buying a pre built car. That said, there are benefits to self built. By building it yourself, you're building the car you've always wanted, exactly as you've wanted it and not buying someone elses dream. When you build it yourself, you get exactly what you want. Looking at the situation from a financial prespective - of course I have no idea what your financial situation is. We have all types of guys on here; we have guys who can easily write a check for $100K without blinking an eye to guys who will sweat writing one for $10K, and it's all good either way. It's absolutely true that buying this kit is only the price of admission; there are much larger expenses to come. However, if you're one of the guys who isn't flush with cash, building your own allows you to get into the game now and then to proceed as your funding comes available rather than sitting on the sideline trying over years to assemble the funds to get into the game. It's a bit like self financing, assuming that works for you - you build as you get the cash to do so. Again, you need to decide what works for you and your situation.

Make no mistake, if you buy this kit, your total into it is going to be a big number, and invariably much bigger than you had planned. I was speaking on the phone the other day with a man who is a very experienced seller of Cobras and who has his finger firmly on the pulse of the market. While my car is certainly not for sale, I was curious as to what he believes it's worth. He estimated about $60K, +/- $5K or so. I can assure you that while I stopped counting LONG ago, I have painfully more than that into it right now. I've built this car to the highest standard that I possibly could. I have had to farm out some of the work because I am not a fabricator of the level this car needed. My car may not be the finest Contemporary out there, but I'm reasonaby sure it's not far off the pace. It was very expensive to get it to that level. Yours will be expensive too. Hopefully some of this helps you to choose what to do.