ERA vs SPF - Page 9

csx wnab · #**161** (**permalink**) 05-16-2008, 10:23 PM

ya know..............duane said it pretty good. i own a superformance and love it. i have driven and worked on the real deal and 4000 and 7000 series. my spf2669 drives better than those. era are very nice. never driven one . would like to.

RICK LAKE · #**162** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 04:04 AM

Madmaxx Most of the ERA guys don't flip there cars for a possible quick profit and build another. ERA has a square tube frame as compared to a round tube frame. Shelby is a money pig looking for any place to get a dollar in his pocket, IMO.

As of the SCCA race that was at VIR, the Shelby-SPF joint was done. The officials on sunday would not let Dennis O. run his coupe with the Shelby cars even though he was a dealer and distributor now of Shelby cars. Dana or Salibury rearends have the same basic look. The main case is designed after the Dana 44 rear case. 98% of the cobra came with Jag rearends. The drag cars would be the only ones to have a solid axle setup. No the originial cobra didn't come with power steering. This is an opition you can get from ERA and some of the other builders. You might want to THINK out side of the box for a minute and ask yourself WHY are all these cars for sale??

I did leave out 2 companies that would have a higher resale valve that ERA, both build Aluminium body cars. When all is said and done you will have about 50K with a 427FE motor in any cobra. The only place you can save money is on the body work and painting of the car.

If you are lucky and have the right color and drivetrain in your car you MIGHT break even on resale.

Max I am not saying any thing bad about other companies and gald you are happy with your SPF. The guys that race them do very well. There are alot of opitions for your cobra with bigger brakes and tires, P/S, motor and trans combos, Fuel injection stack setups. Alot of the SPF cars are running 351 strokers in the 390- 427" cubes. They are lighter and faster than the FE iron block motor cars. Looking forward to your buildup. I have driven 4 different cobras. You can't compare them to each other, because of suspensions, wheels and tires, different motors and transmissions. They all drove great. There is some other info I will not talk about on this forum. If you want to know you can private e-mail me. Rick L.

jagxjr5012 · #**163** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 06:57 AM

I like both cars .....they each have their advantages depending on your abilities to build and to what extent you want to go through before driving a finished product. However as I look at what is for sale right now it looks like this........25 SPF for sale (back to 3/07) on ClubCobra, 12 on CobraCountry with "Reduced" next to 4 of the ads and the manufacture ad that says "Reduced Prices" .......There are 10 ERA's on ClubCobra (back to 1/07), 5 on CobraCountry with 1 car having "reduced" next to it. Maybe the demand is enough for those kind of numbers I don't know ...........
Like I said ther are both beutiful cars and just have different advantages......

jagxjr5012 · #**164** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 07:42 AM

The other thing I think to note on the number of cars for sale is that there are probably duplicates (the owner advertises one car on both sites) so the total number may be off a few units.........

madmaxx · #**165** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 08:00 AM

If you are lucky and have the right color and drivetrain in your car you MIGHT break even on resale, Geez I must be lucky, made $10K profit on my first one and was offered $3200 more than what I just paid for my current one, granted my current one is brand new with a Roush. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I guess I live in a hot cobra market. My curiosity on ERA is heightened I need to locate one and inspect. I agree my preliminary research did not give ERA credit but I am sure I will stumble across one in the near future. I make sure to take my inspection mirror LOL!!

You will always see more SPF's for sale, they have made 2800 of them, how many ERA's have been made? I bet the percentage for sale is about the same, either way the market is saturated.

patrickt · #**166** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmaxx

My curiosity on ERA is heightened I need to locate one and inspect...

Don't bother. Mine was assessed today by an eye equally trained as yours and it only came up to $10k. (see thread On the "How Much Does Your Car Cost?" Question )

RICK LAKE · #**167** (**permalink**) 05-17-2008, 04:24 PM

madmaxx Max ERA is in the high 700 or very low 800. This is for the SC model. The Fia cars may only be in the low 100's numbers. GT-40 are maybe 30-40 total. My father used to say that even the sun shines on a dogs a$$ every once in a while.

If you sold your car and made a profit, you are a lucky guy or found a person that knows nothing about a cobra and wants to drive it home today or you did alot more work on the car than you said you did and it showed. IMO cobra are either brought with people who are loaded or guys like me that save for 20+ years to buy a dream. SPF or FFR have built more cars in 1 month than ERA builds in one year. Both these companies have 30-40 guys maken cars, getting parts, installing, and repairing cars. ERA has 10 and 3 of them are part time. Except for motors and painting, everything is done in house. Jag rearends are not as easy to rebuild as a 9" or 8.8 ford rearend. I think in building your car you forgot all the hours you spent in the garage. The 1:00am kick to your shoe from the other half saying come to bed.

You are sleeping under the other misstress.

The average to put a cobra together is about 100 hours, times $25.00 per hour for labor, misc supplys, soda, WATER, beer, and that nice electric bill from running the lights to 1:00 am in the morning. I think you broke even.

Rick L.

madmaxx · #**168** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 06:49 AM

To be honest I sold my first one to cheap, I could have made $11K. The guy I sold it too turned around two years later and 12K more miles and sold it for $1K more than I sold it to him for!!!!!

Who cares anyone notice in the CC classified section the two new SPF rollers with install kits for $35k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it for real, may be buying again, who says you can't have two cobra's!!

mrmustang · #**169** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmaxx

To be honest I sold my first one to cheap, I could have made $11K. The guy I sold it too turned around two years later and 12K more miles and sold it for $1K more than I sold it to him for!!!!!

Ah yes, but what type of money did he invest into the car to "make it his own" in that time period?

As for the SPF vs ERA debate (can't remember if I did ever respond to this thread originally and I'm too tired this AM to look at all the pages of posts to find out), I've owned both (and then some

) and love each and every one of them for what they were. Is one better than the other in regards to resale, well, on this one I'll just say the old adage that there is a "behind" for every seat still rings true. Each individual owner/potential owner and each individual seller/buyer has to decide for himself just what that is. Pricing one car vs another when each one was individually tailored to the original owners whims, desires, and personal tastes seems more like a futile attempt to try and justify your (his/her/their?) own personal choices and spending habits, nothing more, nothing less. I'll leave it at that.

Bill S.

ZOERA-SC7XX · #**170** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:21 AM

It is about personal choices. Nothing wrong with the SPF car, as it is a high-production, high quality Cobra. My ERA speaks for me as far as choice is concerned. I wanted a car that I could build that resembled the original as closely as possible without spending 100k. ERA is about twenty minutes from my home and allows me to stop there every week or two on the way home from work and keeps me in touch with Doug and Peter, who treat me as family and have helped make my build enjoyable. For the guy who just wants to write a check, SPF or Backdraft are as good as any.

madmaxx · #**171** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:55 AM

I wish the guy with the two SPF rollers would call me back. I also noticed two spf sold on club cobra within a week of listing there is an ERA available if anyone is interested. My original was a BDR with a KC306 I bought off a multimillionaire who determined the anticipation of a cobra was better than the reality. Had it delivered to my house in Houston for $27K (including delevery) with 147 miles on it, he originally paid $34K, titled in Texas as a 1965. I did finger f*** for 10 hours on the slip fit on the side pipes. I ended up buying a Lysle tail pipe expander, which worked GREAT and if I would have done that from the get go would have had it fixed in 4 hours. I credit my labor for $500 for that and other poor installer findings. I did drive the car for 600 miles, put up for sale on a whim on the coldest day in January and it sold for $37500 within a week, to be honest I thought it would take months. The only thing different the guy who I sold it to did was change the windsheild to Lexan and rerun the harness tie downs through the rear bulkhead. He sold it for $38500 in about a week coincentedally in January LOL!!

MRMustang hit on the head, different butts for different seats. I never buy to sell but everything I have is for sale. Owned over 30 cars and all but 3 either broke even or made a profit. Sold an old 76 eldo caddy convert once for $2500 more than I was asking, that was powered by an 8.2liter 501 cubing inch plant for you big block lovers. A real pos and a slow dog on its best day but it looked good.

I told a guy at autozone the other day when he asked how much my kit car cost that you can get a kit for $14,995. He offered me $13,500 and I told him I would think about it LOL.

You don't have to sell your car to everyone just someone.

In final comments I do not car if a car has a titanium chassis and twin turbocharged blah blah blah, I base my critique on how it drives in all conditions and nothing comes close to a Superformance and I have driven 8 cobras, FF, BDR, Unique, Classic, Everett Morrison and some I have not idea who made it.

mrmustang · #**172** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmaxx

I base my critique on how it drives in all conditions and nothing comes close to a Superformance and I have driven 8 cobras, FF, BDR, Unique, Classic, Everett Morrison and some I have not idea who made it.

If that is the case, then my personal critique (over 45,000 personal (behind the wheel) miles combined) would be as follows:

Contemporary-IRS
Original CSX3000 series
ERA-IRS
SPF-IRS
FFR-IRS
Unique (IRS)
Original CSX2000 series
FFR-3 Link (which I currently own)
FFR-Solid axle w/coil overs
FFR-Solid axle-standard doner 4 link
Butler-standard 4 link rear
Early EM with 4 link rear

Bill S.

madmaxx · #**173** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:17 PM

patrickt

I just found the other thread you referred to "Don't bother. Mine was assessed today by an eye equally trained as yours and it only came up to $10k."

I guess there are three individuals in the world (the two girls and I) that place the value on your car at about $10K. Smart A$$

patrickt · #**174** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmaxx

patrickt...
I guess there are three individuals in the world (the two girls and I) that place the value on your car at about $10K. Smart A$$

madmaxx · #**175** (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 08:24 PM

Laugh out Loud!!!!!

JWilly · #**176** (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 06:40 AM

I have noticed that a few people (certainly with better eyes than mine) said they could identify an SPF 100 yds away. A couple of days ago, I took my SPF to the dealer to have a bit of work done. While there, I spotted and SPF and a CSX 4000 series (continuation car, I assume made in Vegas) parked side by side. I could not tell them apart. I asked some other fellows there if they could point out to me some differences between the two. There was no consensus on anything looking obviously different about the two.

Maricopa · #**177** (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 07:53 AM

Really J? No difference at all?
The SPF is a nice looking car, but there are many differences. Shoot I get asked all the time if my FFR is 'REAL' but that doesn't mean that it looks just like a 4000K series.

ERA 626 · #**178** (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 08:00 AM

The SPF is narrower and higher than the CSX/KMS/ERA also the pipes are higher... I am NOT saying that one car is better than the other just answering the question...

JWilly · #**179** (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 08:55 AM

This particular SPF did not sit higher than the CSX did (could be a suspension adjustment or a tire thing???). I do realize there are differences between the two, my poorly made point is that the differences are pretty darn subtle. Maybe, after I have been around these cars for several years, seeing several different makes, I will see "obvious" differences among them. Hey, I can already spot a West Coast Cobra 100 yds away! As I have said before, I love em all. No disrespect intended.

patrickt · #**180** (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JWilly

I do realize there are differences between the two, my poorly made point is that the differences are pretty darn subtle.

Some might say that if you can't see the differences between a CSX, Kirkham, ERA, and SPF then you should almost certainly buy the SPF.... Not me, mind you, but some people might say that....