Hi again Evan!
Thank you for saying how you 'respectfully disagree'. I assume you were adressing my comment about respect and your demonstrated use of it across the past ten or more years. I guess if you say your disagreement is respectful, that makes it so, and I'll let you have that out of the mutual respect.
I also noticed you say aggrandizing and I say aggrandising. Hmmm... I assume that was intentional as well since you say tomato and I say tomato. There must be a song there somewhere, but it ain't
kumbaya as we sit by the fire.
I will agree with you on your point about calling any of these kit cars 'replicas'. You can check my record on this for the past 11 years and you will find that I prefer 'kit car' and have written a number of posts to the effect that the term 'replica' has only come about recently and primarily with the advent of a lot of well-heeled folks simply writing checks for their kit cars. Given the amount of money they spend they feel the term 'kit car' is not commensurate with their cash outlay, so the term 'replica' has become popular. I am sure some will disagree, but I have been in this kit cobra game for 24 years and have seen the change first hand. My kit cobra went together in '90 and '91. I went to my first Run and Gun in '92 or '93 in Indianapolis and frankly no one I spoke to called their kit cobra a 'replica' in general conversation. I will further add that in my opinion, a REAL replica would have to replicate all aspects of the original, including round frame, brazed suspension arms, girling calipers on solid rotors, aluminum body, etc, etc...
So, in summary, I think mine is a 'kit car' (heck, back then 'kit' was stretching the truth as you had to figure out a whole lot of it yourself). I think 'replica' in itself is a self-serving term that has come into popularity in the last 10 years, primarily because some folks have a hang-up about the connotation of the term 'kit car'. I think yours is a 'reissue' since it was provided by some company related to some guy named Shelby. I think very few out there are truly 'replicas'. I don't agree that repeating SAACs opinion is providing 'facts' (SAACs opinion is just that, an opinion). I will continue to call all of them 'cobras' since in layman's terms that is what they are and I am a simple guy, not a lawyer. I respectfully request you change your handle to
Reissue1.