I've been a Cobra tragic for as long as I can remember. When I owned my Austin Healey 3000 in the late 1960s I used to fantasize over the Rod Leach "Nostalgia" ads in the English Thoroughbred and Classic Car magazine featuring "genuine" Cobras which were already well out of reach financially. I bought Carroll Shelby's "The Cobra Story" as told to John Bentley way back in 1968 I think it was, and I even managed to capture some grainy 8mm footage of Ken Miles at Lakeside Raceway in his Cobra years ago. I remember it was the first time a can of Coke vibrated in my hand when a race car went by! So you could say that Cobras have been on my mind one way and another for some considerable time.
My son seemed to inherit my passion for these wonderful cars and he has owned two locally built Australian examples, so I tagged along to the local club meetings, but never really felt the call to buy a "modern" Cobra.
Two years ago we came upon a pristine low mileage example of a car built by one of the very first builders of replica Cobras, Steve Arntz who commenced building his replicas in the early 1970s, only a few years after the cessation of the Cobra racing dynasty. This one had been built by Arntz Industries in their production assembly workshop at 1745 Filbert St, San Francisco in 1979. To me it has one of the best shapes of all Cobra replicas and the fact that it is old school satisfies my need for a Cobra whose siblings came into existence a few short years after the last of the originals. It is Chevy 454 powered, as were a lot of the Arntz cars, which may upset some purists but it is a thirty-three year old example, showing some of the lovely patina and signs of her age.
I have replaced the original MGB front end with a custom Cobra-sized one from
FAST CARS, Inc MGB IFS which is a two inch wider version of their MGB IFS. I think steering and braking are reasonably important so I justified the upgrade on safety grounds.
This old Arntz is a real attention grabber and has a little more street cred because due to its age I've been allowed to retain its left hand drive configuration, something different down here in Oz.
To add to my satisfaction my son has recently sourced a 1981 Arntz. We travelled to Goodwood for the Revival meeting in September and were overwhelmed at the sight of more than twenty beautiful original racing Cobras. There is still no chance that our finances will ever stretch to owning one of these beauties but having two "vintage" Arntzs in the family is pretty cool just the same.
Sorry if I've strayed off track a bit Clois, but if you're talking about builders who put together a quality car that's going to stand the test of time, then Steve Arntz was a shining example.