BWII,
Congratulations on the purchase of 038. 1994 was the first full production year and the last regular production ended in 1997 with 177. The earliest number I have seen is 002. That doesn't mean much since there are apparently no existing factory records. There is a prevailing belief that there are gaps in the VIN sequence. This would mean that there are probably fewer than 177 regular production cars. Tom Hekkers (ohekk), owner of 003 and without a doubt the most knowledgeable on these cars, believes there are about 135. I have compiled a spread sheet of reported cars from a variety of sources, mostly this thread and ebay listings, and have info on about 55 or so VIN's and info on perhaps another 20 without a VIN. There may be some overlap between the non-VIN cars with the one's where a VIN is known. Bottom line is that there are about half that have not surfaced in the past seven years since Tom began trying to collect the information.
All Excalibur cobra owners and enthusiasts
Tom is pretty busy with family, business and other activities so I have volunteered to try to add to what he gathered. My goal is the same as Tom's- to create an info source on these cars and make it available to other owners and those interested in these great production cobra replicas. I am no web master and not interested in becoming one. I have put the info I have collected, including what Tom sent me last summer, into two formats which I update at least twice a month. The first is a VIN spread sheet (Excel) that lists cars by VIN (or year if no VIN is determined). In this sheet I try to track each car's location (by city) and ownership (usually by user ID), features (colors, options, special features or modifications), mileage, selling or asking or highest bid prices and source of the info. Entries for each car are dated by month and year of the report. The second document is a collection of useful info about these cars copied from a variety of sources in MS Word format. This started out as a record of what I could determine about my own car (149) which had some modifications to the motor and electronics. To this I added descriptions, factory literature info, contacts, specs, part numbers and even conflicting speculation as to sources of some of the components and fixes for some weaknesses that were reported as common. The organization of this document is largely chronological as to when I found the info. Sometime in my next life I'll reorganize it more systematically. All that being said, I make no claims as to the accuracy of the info contained since I am unable to personally verify most of it.
I am willing to share these documents with those interested.
There is a catch: To receive it, you have to contribute info on your car or interest. I'll provide a questionaire and you just type in the answers and send it back by return email. I promise that any personal info you wish omitted from the spread sheet (such as name, mailing address, phone, email), will not be included. You must tell me specfically if any of those items you consider private and not to be included in the distributed info and subsequent updates to this info. Those who return the completed questionaire will receive both documents and updates at least twice yearly until I decide I can no longer do this. I've been doing this for about two years, so I'm probably good for awhile yet. Tom did it for at least seven years.
I also need help
finding more of these cars. Please forward tips, sightings, references, referrals, etc. Please also forward changes in your car's status (such as ownership, location, modifications).
I am still looking for more parts info and sources and facts about these cars so please add to our collective knowledge in this thread or send it to me and I'll add it to the info document.
I prefer contact at my email:
mduke@blinn.edu In this way it will be easier for me to keep organized in sending out questionaires and the info documents. I'll have the questionaire ready in a day or so. Let's roll
I am personally frustrated
at the general lack of knowledge about these fine cars, even among cobra enthusiasts. Among the greater Excalibur owner community, the JAC 427 is largely ignored or regarded as a footnote of little significance. I believe this effort could help raise awareness of the many attributes of these cars among the cobra community as a minimum. I personally have not talked with an owner of an Excalibur cobra who wasn't enthusiastic
about the car. Heck, Earnie (excaliber) keeps selling 033 and then buying it back for more money. He might have priced himself out of it this last time! Earnie, get some help
God Bless, Merry Christmas,
Mike (cobraduke)