[decooney]

Hi Ben, hard for me to say as I've only worked with some of the early generation cars helping friends. The basic platform is pretty much the same all starting with the signature chassis. Take a look and see how straight the body is corner to corner, side to side, etc. Once I heard a bit of info about how some of the bodies came out of the molds funny or the bodies were stored and rested in an unsupported way while curing. One of my good buddies here locally ended up shaving the top of the front fender and messing with the rear quarters on his last car to make it what he wanted but that was just a taste thing. It was fine in its original form. The bodies on the Butler/Arntz cars are pretty thick, not paper thin, pretty and look to see how the bodies are bonded to the chassis, etc.

My only word of caution as with most Cobras is to drive it, make sure its solid, not falling apart, look underneath, make sure the glass is not coming apart in the rear inner fender wells where the body is molded to the chassis. All of these cars are old, check them over, drive it. Does it feel solid, how's it feel over a set of railroad tracks? I always stress the railroad track drive-over test, it quickly identifies the rattletraps from the solid cars. On the other hand, I'm a fan of any of the older Butler/Arntz cars because they are kind of unique, custom, special, rare, not cookie-cutter. Look at it more of being a custom car, and you can update it how you need it to be. I'd start looking closely at the chassis and suspension first, make sure it has good shocks, springs, rear support bar from the differential to the rear of the chassis, is it a coil-over converted front end or stock MGB front-end you might want to upgrade later. If you get a good price on it, might be worth it. Good Luck.