Quote:
Originally Posted by dallas_
C'mon Rick, you telling me that none of the Healy purists ever gave you grief over the fact that you ruined a perfectly good Healy by stuffing a SBF in one?  |
In the Healey world, my car is known as a "modified Healey" or, more popularly a "Nasty Boy". And yeah, we get grief from some of the purists. But it seems to have decreased over the years and if they complain too much we give them a ride, pin their shoulders to the seatback during acceleration and that shuts them up. But even though it's modified, my car is still a Healey. There are some replica Healeys out there in fiberglass, but they are mostly called by their replica names. like "Sebrings" rather than being termed Healeys.
My point here is that there are damn few original (built by Shelby before 1968) Cobra owners that post here. Everyone else has got a replica, continuation, tribute, etc. of some kind or another. Just accept it and move on. Some are better than the original Cobra, some are just as good, and some are terrible. Some are faithful recreations while others are mere approximations. So evaluate them for what they are without regard to what they are called.
If you want to see who has got the "best" Cobra, get them all together and find out which one accelerates quickest from 0-60 mph, and 0-100-0 (I vaguely remember that figure), does a fast lap in a road course, best top end and best 1/4 mi. Isn't that the true test of a Cobra, not all this other window dressing?
But to me as an interested observer, this never-ending squabbling over opinions of what's "best" is just silly. I get it. As car guys, it's what we do. As a Healey concours judge, I've been involved in plenty of the same inane conversations.
So at the end, enjoy the car you drive without dumping on the other guy's car. They are all pretty damn good and pissing other folks off isn't making them any happier and likely not you either.