Cobras, and what is Real?

Really, all Ol’ Shel was interested in was winning races and making a pile of money while doing so.

One of his first efforts was the Cobra, a hybrid of an AC Ace Roadster and Ford’s 260 C.I. V-8. This car was so successful that Ford helped engineer a bigger, faster Cobra called the 427

Along with posters, books and punditry, Cobra spawned an industry building replicas and continuation cars. The Arntz Cobra was the first one I was aware of, coming across an article in Hot Rod magazine sometime in the 80’s while bench racing with some friends.

The upshot is that the Cobra is so popular that replicas and continuations have now eclipsed the numbers of O.G. Cobras coming from the Shelby American factory.

What brought this grumpy little rant about are the sheer number of folks on Reddit posting pictures of Cobras that they’ve snapped and asking :”Izzit Real?”

No. it’s not real, if what you mean is a car that was built at the Shelby works, or by Ford’s Boffins. See that rough looking car above? That’s a real 427 Cobra. Owned by the late Tony Hogg, an esteemed former Editor-in -Chief of Road and Track magazine.

Mr. Hogg used the car regularly, and would cite its performance as a standard against which other cars would be compared. The car is currently in the collection of the California Automobile Museum, in Sacramento, California and is driven by Mr. Hogg’s estate- I’ve seen this car on Sixth street in Downtown, about to make the turn onto I street, into Old Sac and back to the CAM.

It’s a scruffy looking beast, no hood scoop, no leg burning side pipes, nothing really polished; ferocity personified.

The shiny things below are replicas and continuation cars. Factory Five is the best known of these manufacturers, offering both 289 and 427 kits as well as several interesting cars that one can clang together over a period of weeks to years in your garage if you’re so inclined. If you want Investment Grade stuff, then go to the source. Cars are mostly lousy investments however, because you’re dealing in memories, and what was iconic to one generation of gearheads is an afterthought to another.

It seems though, that the Cobra may defy this because of its sheer outrageousness which is what every young hotshoe aspires to- I can’t tell you how many first paragraphs I’ve scribbled and binned detailing how a 427 Cobra isn’t the car to start in a quiet Sunday morning cul-de-sac.

What’s “real” here? Everything, really.

Okay, so they weren’t built “In Period”, but that shouldn’t matter much to us. What matters is that I get to see and hear a bit of automotive history being used as intended, and giving its owner a hell of a good time in the process.

Is it real? Probably not in the way you’re thinking. Does it matter? Ultimately, no. Let’s have fun with the things without worrying about the provenance.