I just read Leroy's comment in Paintwerks' thread about Pace footwell room and wanted to recount a recent experience of my own.
It seems like so long ago but way back when Brad (Cob01) was beginning his build, I sat in his car at the Pace factory and was surprised at the amount of leg room. Sure it was bare -- no seat, no pedals, no door -- but it was obvious the thing had plenty of cabin space.
Fast forward to last week when Brad called out of the blue and said it was time I took his now completed car for a drive. He duly arried at my place and I was just in the processs of trying it on for size when we got a call from another CC member Jeff Wood who had just returned home from a trout fishing trip to Lake Eucumbene and was suffering withdrawal symptoms from not having driven his Cobra for a couple of weeks. Jeff rolled around in fifteen minutes and what I thought was going to be a brief run around the block turned, at Brad's suggestion, into a drive up to Wivenhoe Dam!
Now, I'm 194 cm tall and Brad's not. Nevertheless I fitted in quite comfortably and off we went -- carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was trash Brad's new baby, Pace No.1. Things were going smoothly and I was starting to relax when just before Fernvale, with no chance of avoidance due to oncoming traffic and no run-off area, we simply demolished a poorly filled pothole on top of a ridge we had to straddle, overfilled to the max and not tamped down. Luckily it was a recent job and the gravelly bitumen had not fully hardened, but Jeff who was following was peppered with sticky black rocks. The jolt was bad enough but the noise of bouncing gravel hammering the undersides of that lovely car was scary. I s**t myself but Brad was amazingly calm and unruffled and suggested we continue on to Fernvale, which I did but keeping an eye on the gauges and looking in the mirror for any trace of
oil.
An examination of the undersides in Ferny revealed no damage and after a calming cuppa (for me -- Brad was totally unconcerned -- unreal) we continued on up to Wivenhoe where Jeff left us and Brad and I continued on up and over Mt Glorious, down through the lovely Samford Valley and then Gap Creek Rd and home.
We'd done about 150 klms and I'd driven all the way, some highway, some suburban stuff, and more testingly Mt Glorious which requires a lot of pedal work. Initially on the highway I'd tried to find a spot for my left foot down among the floor-mounted pedals. It wasn't too bad with my leg slightly bent resting on the transmission tunnel, but after a while I found that I could put my foot between the clutch and brake pedals and stretch my leg out. Obviously not the thing for driving in traffic but for highway cruising, lovely! The throttle was OK, not absolutely perfect for me but I could have driven much further without drama. Knee room was plentiful. The high line of the underside of the dash meant that even with my long legs, my knees did not touch the dash at any time during the drive, ever! Similarly with the steering wheel -- heaps of clearance.
Brad said that there was a further forward adjustment of 50 mm available on all pedals, and that later Paces also had an additional rearward movement of the seat of 50 mm available as well, so for incredibly tall people like myself leg room is quite simply not an issue. I'm not sure if Pace offer a dropped floor option, but if they do then any leg room problem is solved beyond any doubt whatsoever.
Another interesting point was the height of the seat (or the height of the doors, not sure). In my Arntz, I sit at a height where wind blows up my shirt sleeve. In Brad's car I sit much lower so that the wind is not a problem and it feels somehow safer being right down in the car. I had to have the steering column in my car moved inboard a little to give me sufficient elbow room but no such problems in the Pace. The Pace trampoline seat copped a good workout too with my 115 kgs and didn't bottom out at any time. So ... leg room length and width tick, dashboard clearance tick, steering wheel clearance and placement tick, elbow room tick, seat tick, supremely comfortable driving position tick, underbody strength and well guarded sump plug for dealing with Queensland road repairs, big tick!
Way back in the early days, Brad had said I could take his car for a drive when it was finished and now I have. It's only the third Cobra I've driven -- Craig's (750HP) blue monster, mine, and now Brad's -- simply because I couldn't fit into them. Pace have emphatically put that problem to rest with their beautifully crafted 427. Well done to Craig White and his staff for bringing this car on to the market and my whole-hearted appreciation and thanks to Brad for entrusting me with Pace No.1.