[DMXF]

Originally Posted by mr bruce

Still faster and rarer than a Cobra.

Bruce - I wouldn't necessarily jump to that conclusion. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you put a 60's specification big block Cobra with all the top shelf components that were developed for the cars (but many rarely, if ever, utilized) up against a comparable 60's spec Cheetah (not one with all modern enhancements and Dart engine, etc). On a road course the properly equipped Cobra may do better than you think.

The vintage racing scene may be one indicator. Bill Murray used to race CSX3032 often and it only has a few subtle modifications from stock - mainly for reliability. Meanwhile, Bill's main competitors, the Corvettes, have morphed into tube chassis sillouette cars like a modern Sprint Cup stock cars. Note that the SVRA supposedly states you are not supposed to run tube chassis, so the vette boys supposedly graft in pieces of original vette chassis here and there to create some imaginary justification. Suspensions on the vettes are all custom, fixing probably all the shortcomings of the original car, with different attachment points, widened track (pictures show how far the tires stick out from the sides requiring big flares), wider wheels, etc. The Vettes also use modern heads that flow probably 75cfm or more than the ported Cobra medium risers, with much more displacement (3032 is 427 vs I recall around 483 ci for the winning vette at a recent Watkins Glen race) and of course the resulting greater horsepower. At least one vette at the Glen definitely had bigger front tires. In spite of all the differences in authenticity of the cars and other handicaps on the Cobra (will get into that next), Bill's pole position qualifying time in '07 in 3032 at the Glen was about 2:04 vs '08's winning "vette" was 2:03! All that trickery in the vettes and they are only beating an essentially stock handicapped Cobra by about a second - think about that.

Now a bit more about the handicaps: The SVRA refused Bill's attempt to run webers on 3032, in spite of the fact they were developed for and homologated for the big block Cobra at one point. Also, SC cars came with 2x4 Holleys and a few years ago when Bill was going through the engine, he outfitted it with 660cfm dual quads. This setup made notably more power on the dyno and Bill was going to use it.....that is until the SVRA said he could only use that setup if he ran carb bodies with very small restricted approx 450cfm venturies - in spite of the fact that the cars came with 715cfm carbs! That killed the idea, so Bill put the single 850 Holley back on the old dual plane factory intake. The vettes all also run chin spoilers (which is not factory), yet they denied Bill's request to use one - even when Cobras raced with them as early as Bob Olthoff having fitted one in '64. I can't get into all the additional details, but I will add one important fact that the SVRA made Bill add around 200lb of lead ballast to his car so it wouldn't run away from the field!

Compound this by having some professional or semi-professional drivers in the vettes (at least one guy drives in races like the 24 hrs of Daytona) who aren't worried about "trading paint" with $100k stock cars vs a seven figure valued original body Cobra. Mac Archer also used to very successfully vintage race CSX3195 in more modern times. A properly set up Cobra is no slouch.