Shelby book hooked a Corvette guy

[Flint]

Greetings! It's taken me a long time, but I'm finally appreciating what a cool car the Cobra is, and thinking some version of it might be in my future.

I'm just finishing the Rinsey Mills biography of Carroll Shelby. I never realized what a cool guy he was, and I'm kicking myself for never learning about him and trying to meet him before he died.

I come from a long time in the Corvette hobby. I've owned many of them, especially '67 and older. I currently own a 1957 fuel-injected racer that spent a lot of track time in southern California. The original owner of my car is still alive at 90 in Beverly Hills, and he told me that he and a fellow Corvette racer were in Carroll's shop in Venice in 1962 and when he found out they were Corvette racers he told them he was building a car that was going to "kick some Corvette ass". I like plain speak, and there's no denying that he did what he said he would do. Corvetters would add a lengthy "yeah, butal" here, but that's a different discussion.

Shelby did show them some things about the importance of port matching in the shop that day, and my car still benefits from his help in that area. So I do have a pretty indirect connection to him already.

I still like Corvettes, especially '62 and older, but I think my next sports car will be a Cobra. Someday I might use my car a little at the track, but it would mostly be a weekend cruiser. I would want a car that followed the body lines of an original '64-'65 as closely as possible. I would want it to appear as correct as possible. I'm not sure if I'd want a big block or not. I'm told the front end weight of some big block cars gets a little high. I prefer the factory built cars like Superformance, but the back of SPFs seems a little perky. I should mention that I've only seen pictures of reproduction Cobras, and almost all of them look pretty damn nice.

So I'm in no hurry. I think my budget would be around 40K. I wouldn't be planning on re-selling my Cobra, but I would hope to have one that would keep a decent market value for that eventuality.

What a great site. I kind of feel like I know some of you guys already.