Rockstars Billy Idols ERA #

[Paul A]

Details on Billy's ERA Cobra,
I ordered the kit from ERA (Peter P.) in 1981, took delivery in May of 1982. The S/N was 044. I lived in Orange Cty, CA. I originally built the car with a 427 side oiler with 12:1 compression, a real mistake. It was painted by Pete Santini's shop in Orange Cty, color Honda Accord red with silver stripes. I did all of the aluminum work in the trunk and some of the aluminum in the engine compartment, I subbed the balance to a shop in Costa Mesa. I never installed the ERA data plate on the footbox and filled in the ERA 044 in the side of the inner left fender fiberglass. I wanted to fake out a lot of people. The car as I sold it in 1987 had a 428 Cobra Jet that was great for taking real driving trips along the California coast and attending shows 100 miles away. The entire engine compartment was covered in aluminum and it also had the famous puke-tank mounted to the firewall near the rear right side valve cover. I mounted the battery in the trunk and raised the right-side footbox for more legroom. This car won 1st place at the SAAC convention in Anaheim in 1985.The car won the best Cobra replica at the annual kitcar show at Knotberry Farm in 1995. It was also featured in a 3 page article in Peterson's Kit Car Magazine's May 1986 issue. I can tell you some funny stories about Billy's ownership.

[SunDude]

Did you sell it to Billy Idol? Or did it pass through someone else's ownership before getting to him?

Originally Posted by Paul A

Details on Billy's ERA Cobra,
I ordered the kit from ERA (Peter P.) in 1981, took delivery in May of 1982. The S/N was 044. I lived in Orange Cty, CA. I originally built the car with a 427 side oiler with 12:1 compression, a real mistake. It was painted by Pete Santini's shop in Orange Cty, color Honda Accord red with silver stripes. I did all of the aluminum work in the trunk and some of the aluminum in the engine compartment, I subbed the balance to a shop in Costa Mesa. I never installed the ERA data plate on the footbox and filled in the ERA 044 in the side of the inner left fender fiberglass. I wanted to fake out a lot of people. The car as I sold it in 1987 had a 428 Cobra Jet that was great for taking real driving trips along the California coast and attending shows 100 miles away. The entire engine compartment was covered in aluminum and it also had the famous puke-tank mounted to the firewall near the rear right side valve cover. I mounted the battery in the trunk and raised the right-side footbox for more legroom. This car won 1st place at the SAAC convention in Anaheim in 1985.The car won the best Cobra replica at the annual kitcar show at Knotberry Farm in 1995. It was also featured in a 3 page article in Peterson's Kit Car Magazine's May 1986 issue. I can tell you some funny stories about Billy's ownership.

[Paul A]

I sold ERA 044 to a gentleman who owned Carson Toyota, in Carson, CA. He drove it for a few months and then flipped it. Tony S lived in Marina Del Ray and ran with the LA heavy hitter crowd and got talking with Billy Idol and ended up selling it. Billy picked up the car from Tony's dealership and drove it up to his place in Hollywood.
Billy never got to his home, smoke starting coming out of the rearend & trunk, so he took it to a shop in Hollywood who stored Billy's collections of motorcycles. Billy called Tony S and Tony referred Billy to call me to help do a root cause analysis for the smoke.
I was on a speaker phone with Billy & the shop owner and I asking them a number of questions of what to feel and where to look. I was at a loss and then I finally asked them what position is the emergency brake handle in? Is it horizontal or point towards the sun? They said it was pointing towards the sun. The whole shop broke up in laughter and the employees were calling Billy various names that started with a D.
I told him to put it down and take if for a 15-20 ride and see if it still smokes and call me back with the results. It didn't smoke anymore.
Even thou I didn't display the ERA044 S/N on the car, when I registered the car with the California DMV, the CHP installed the state's vin # where I asked them to put it, in the trunk, drivers side on a horizontal steel cross brace just behind the bulkhead between the two vertical rollbar hoops. It was registered as a Specialty Constructed Vehicle.

[xb-60]

Do you have any good pictures of ERA 044 that you could post here?

Cheers,
Glen

[Paul A]

Additional details on ERA044 that Billy Idol purchased.
I indicated that I had additional anecdotes about Billy's early use of ERA044. In those days (mid-80s) he was appearing in Vegas. He had owned the car for about a year and I got a call from him & the owner of the shop who maintained his motorcycle collection and Billy had a major problem driving it back from Vegas to LA.
While heading west bound on the interstate at speed, Billy and his passenger saw something bright/shinny streaking past the car into the desert. Then they saw a wheel/tire starting to pass up the car on the right side and rolled out into the desert for about 100 yards. Believe me, I couldn't write a script better than this if I tried. The car was equipped with the 6 drive pin knock wheels.
First the wing nut flew off and passed up the car and then the wheel came out of the wheel well without any damage to the body/chassis and sheared off all the drive pins. This was living proof that the ERA Cobra is a 50/50 weight distribution vehicle and sat at rest with one wheel missing.
They wanted to know where they could get new drive pins & a new knockoff spinner. I gave them Mike McCluskey's name and business contact info in Torrance, CA. It was Mike who I purchased all of their brand new Trigo wheels, adapters, wingnuts in 1982.
I asked how the wing nut came off because I was very serious about safety and lock wired the wingnut to the wheels, I was a test engineer for an aircraft manufacture and safety was everything.
Billy responded that he had a flat tire on the right rear, 295/50x15 BFG radial. He just had a typical tire store do the flat repair and put it back on the car. I strongly suspect that no one in that shop had a shot filled hammer to knock on the 3 ear wing spinner and NO lock wire & No lock wire pliers.
Correction to my earlier comment about winning best Cobra replica @ Knottsberry Farm Show, it was in 1985 and not 1995 as shown.
A note on pictures of the car: I do have photos of the finished car and photos it during the build, but I will need to have those photos converted into digital. It will take some time.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Paul A

This was living proof that the ERA Cobra is a 50/50 weight distribution vehicle and sat at rest with one wheel missing.

That is absolutely f'ing amazing. Over the winter I'm going to test that out with mine (in the garage with something under the frame so it can only drop an inch or so). I would never imagine that you could drive on three wheels.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by patrickt

That is absolutely f'ing amazing. Over the winter I'm going to test that out with mine (in the garage with something under the frame so it can only drop an inch or so). I would never imagine that you could drive on three wheels.

Wait a minute, couldn't you also test this my driving very slowly over a big pot hole with the back right wheel and if you can drive on three wheels then the tire shouldn't drop down in the hole. Hmmmm, where is eschaider when you need him?