[Don]

From Paul Schilling, owner of the Buchanan Cobra in Australia:

The Buchanan Cobra was produced from about 1958 to 1960 by Nat Buchanan as a turn key car to supplement the Buchanan bodies as mentioned on the Buchanan web site. He produced about 7 Cobras, the details about his operation are very vague. the first two were featured in road tests in current Australian car magazines of the period. The Modern Motor September 1958 and April 1959, Sports Car World May 1959 and Australian Sports Cars and Specials which was produced some times in the 1970s.I am not aware of the ACE Bristol being used as a styling buck for the Cobra, it was apparently designed by Nat Buchanan and Stan Brown who built the prototype body from Buchanan's drawings.

I am not aware of any Buchanan Cobras being exported out of the country although one did appear in New Zealand in 2004 with XJ6 Jaguar running gear and in a hundred bits.. It was on an E-Bay site. I know of two other cobras, both in Sydney and both in bits. As far as I know mine, number 3 of the 7, is the only one that is complete and running. Mine is registered on Victorian classic registration and used extensively for Hill climbs. sprints and race circuit regularity events. I manage about 12 events a year.

All of the cobras started out with very humble beginnings using Standard 10 mechanicals. Mine has a Triumph spitfire 1147cc motor and a mark 3 Spitfire gear box. This gives it a bit of spirit and I manage to give the bug eye sprites a bit of curry in most events.

I have no idea why the car was called Cobra in 1958, there is no mention of this in any of the articles about the Cobra. Seems to be the "first" Cobra though..