Cobra kit car

[meissen]

Have you gotten into American Pickers at all?

[Darren]

Have you gotten into American Pickers at all?

Oh yeah another show that I try and catch or record all the time. I dunno why but those two shows I just love! Those guys find some weird stuff too!

[Plantfoam]

Oh yeah another show that I try and catch or record all the time. I dunno why but those two shows I just love! Those guys find some weird stuff too!

Those are the only two shows that I bother watching on History anymore..and I'm a history buff. They stopped caring about history, and it has now become the Nostradamus/monster/UFO channel.

[meissen]

History International, if you get it, now seems to be the true HISTORY channel.

[1BADAIR]

there was a real one at a car show in oxford not long ago. a lady had it there. her dad bought it new. It took so long to get it that it was upgraded to a 427 basically for free. The bad think was that he liked metal flake so much he had it repainted the same color but added WAy to much flake

[WMCC Doug]

I've seen several real Cobras over the years. But then, I'm an old geezer! LOL I've been going to car events for over 40 years now.

The Camaro Club used to host a solo/autocross type event at Grattan Raceway (a two mile road course near Grand Rapids) back in the mid 70's through 1980-81. One time we had a guy from Chicago enter the event with a real Cobra (this was before the kit cars, anyway), he was pre-registered, so I knew there was a Cobra coming to the event.

So, we're having a drivers meeting in the pits early on Saturday morning so there were no cars running. We hear the sound of a car coming into the facility and heading towards the pits. Well, the pits are up on a hill in the center of the track, so we still can't see what's headed our way, but it sounds pretty good. All of a sudden, we see a silver 1970 Chevelle SS454 crest the hill into the pits, pulling an open trailer with a silver 427SC Cobra loaded on board! Even a big bunch of car guys just about lost it over that scene. Everyone just stared with their mouths hanging open, in utter awe. It was pretty cool!

I've got several pics of the car, but I used to shoot 35mm color slides back then, so can't post them. Turns out this guy had quite the car collection. The Chevelle and Cobra were just two cars out of an amazing collection. He also had a '67 427/435hp Corvette coupe, a '69 Camaro COPO 427 and a '67 Ferrari 275GTB ........... all of them silver in color. I ran into him several times over the next year or two at autocross events. He was a great guy and very friendly. It's been 20+ years since I've heard anything from him. I wonder if he still owns any of those cars yet today????

[81DaytonaPaceCar]

A good friend of mine has a real 65 427 Cobra...lives in Spring Lake.

He bought it in puzzle form (i.e. totaled) out of Aspen, Colorado in 1986 for $20,000 and completely restored it over 5 years or so...so he could go vintage racing with it (and, yes, he still does occasionally).

Very interesting story behind it...

Ron had the car displayed downtown GR when they had the Grand Rapids Grand Prix (what was that, 15 years ago now?), and this elderly gentleman walked up to him and told him that he remembered a car exactly like this one back when it was new.

It seems that back in '65, there was a newspaper mogul that owned most of the newspapers up and down the west coast of Michigan (forget his name...lived just north of Holland on Lakeshore Drive) that lived next door to the elderly gentleman, and he bought his son a new 427 Cobra for his 18th birthday. Evidently the son enjoyed terrorizing Holland with it for one summer, and then had it shipped out west to their winter home in Aspen, Colorado (did your eyebrows just go up?).

On December 31, 1965, after drinking most of the evening, the son decided to take one of his buddies for a ride. Well, you can do the math...

Aspen + winter + Cobra + New Year's Eve = Trouble.

He lost control of the car, went over the side of a cliff, killed the passenger, and paralyzed the driver.

The remnants of the car were then just packaged up and stored.

After comparing names, Ron and the elderly gentleman determined that it was the same car.

Last time I saw Ron's car, it was sporting a bored full race prepped 427 side oiler (440 cubes...original motor stored) that made 760 hp (when he started it up inside the trailer, the trailer walls would ripple like water).

While running practice laps for the Grand Prix, one of the other drivers told him that smoke was coming out of the back of the car on the main straight. They check all the possible contributors, tire clearance, fluid leaks, etc, etc...

After a few more practice laps, they concluded that he was smoking the tires in third gear at 110 mph...



Truly amazing cars...

[WMCC Doug]

Cool story, Jeff.

Growing up around the car scene here in Grand Rapids, I always heard about a Cobra that was owned by one of the Gerber sons (of the Gerber baby food fame, out of Freemont). I never saw it around town though. Sort of became one of those urban legends around here.

[ITSSLOW]

Are you sure it's real? I remember my Dad would always tell me when we saw a Cobra, "Nick, you'll probably NEVER see a real one." The ratio of real ones to fake ones is completely messed up. They are really cool cars, and I wouldn't mind having even a kit car, but there's no replacement for the real thing. If you had a real one, though, would you actually drive it?

100% sure its real. Hasn't been on the road since early 80's. It's a friend of my dad's. I've gotten to sit in it and look under the hood. If you seen it you would think someone has neglected their kit car because under the hood is oxidized, there is stuff rusted, and some other stuff. It's just been a time capsule since the early 80's. Only thing its gets done is dusted off, windows cleaned, and tires filled.