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Saturday, August 28, 2010

COBRAS!

Sometimes you wake up to interesting things going on.


Yesterday morning I got up and ambled over to the Marina Bean, my normal morning coffee haunt, and one of the other marina tenants pointed out "a lot of noisy stuff over in the parking lot."


When I looked I found something like thirty Shelby Cobra replicas (and a Shelby 500GT and something called a "Lister") parked in the lot:
cobra 005

Even though they were all kits and replicas, these cars were all gorgeous:
Cobra 010


Cobra 015


Cobra 025


cobra 039


But even in this crowd of beauties, there were a few that stood out.  The first one I spotted (indeed, you could see it from space) was this green one:
Cobra 042
The owners said they'd bought it from the original builder with that color and, because it had been featured in a magazine, decided they should keep it that way.  I like it, but I'm sure they get a lot of grief wherever they go.


The next unique one I spotted was this one painted in black primer with satin silver racing stripes:
Cobra 030
Unfortunately, this owner is planning on changing the color.  He's not finished building it, but he was so eager to get out and go driving that he didn't want to wait for the finish.  His plan is to paint it blue with white racing stripes, bringing it neatly into conformity with the rest of the ranks of replica owners.  Bummer.

Finally, there was this gem made by Kirkham Motorsports:
Cobra 023
Kirkam is a replica company that bought out a Polish MiG factory after the cold war and re-tooled it so they could make sports cars instead of fighter jets.  If you check out their website, you'll find tons of droolworthy photos of shiny aluminium parts being made into shiny aluminium cars and then polished to a mirror shine.  You can also get them in a burnished or brushed finish, all for the bargain price of around $105,000 US dollars.

Knowing this meant I was able to ask the owner the most annoying question possible:

ME: Nice car!
OWNER: [smugly] Thanks.
ME: So what color are you going to paint it?
OWNER: [grumbling] I'm NOT going to paint it.
ME: Yeah, I know, I just figured you probably needed to hear that question one more time.  I've spent enough time poring over the Kirkham Motorsports website to know that it'd be a crime to paint one of these.
OWNER: [almost mockingly] Are you going to get one?
ME: I'd like to, but I've got one or two other, slightly more practical, cars I need to get first.
OWNER: Practical?  This is practical. [points to the roll bar] That part is for hauling lumber.

Since I can't count how many times I've hauled lumber in my tiny convertible, I couldn't tell if he was joking.

Not long after that conversation, the whole crowd fired up their engines and started rolling out:

Sadly, my tiny little camera mic didn't do justice to the deep bass throaty grumble of all of those horses chomping at the bit while they waited for the light to change.

Still, it was a fun way to start the day:
Cobra 038

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