Since I was young I've always heard stories from my Grandpa, Dad, or Uncles about the A/C Cobra my Grandpa helped his friend with in the 60's. His friend Jim seemingly had quite a bit of cash and at some point he connected with my grandpa (I think probably because of his tuning experience). Jim had a Hemi Cuda, a 427 'Vette, and this 427 Cobra. He wasn't a mechanic and kind of relied on my grandpa for that stuff.
My Grandpa claims that there was only one company who would insure the Cobra's at that time, and the price tag was more than the price of the car each year (I'm sure there's someone on here that knows the specifics of this). Anyhow, Jim decided he couldn't drive the car on the street, so he drag raced it. He was convinced by my grandpa to take the engine out and send it off to Holman & Moody. They took the engine out, sent it off, and it came back with aluminum tunnelport heads and a 2x4 intake. There's more than a few stories that either my Grandpa or my oldest Uncle tell about his racing exploits, but he was very successful with the car.
A while back we went on an internet adventure to try and find pictures of the car. We've also been trying to find Jim's whereabouts but haven't gotten a old of him. Here's the only picture we could come up with. The car would sit beside Jim's house so he had to get the top for it. He raced it with the top off.
We've been trying to figure out the story of where the car went but had been pretty unsuccessful. About a month back we were talking with a friend and he told us there was a whole Cobra registry and the guy in town should have a pretty good idea of where it's at (would have been nice to know!). I went over to the Shelby Collection, talked with the guy for a couple minutes, and he pulled out the registry book. Took a bit of looking around, but we found it!
Here's just a picture I took from the Shelby Collection. I have a buddy that's infatuated with the new Ford GT's so I sent him this. This GT had just gone across Barrett Jackson last weekend, some of you might have seen it. There's a Thunderbolt in the background, and one of Shelby's old hi-po 289 sedan delivery Falcons. There's some very cool stuff there, I wish I would have taken more pictures. Here's their website:
https://shelbyamericancollection.org
I did a quick google search for the guy described in the registry. His name and phone number popped right up on google (our world today is pretty creepy sometimes). I chatted with the guy for a while and most the stuff I told him about the car he had never heard before. He bought the car from Jim in 1970, so he knows everything about the car since then, but had never heard all the drag racing exploits. The only thing he knew about it when he bought it is it had the current A/SP record at Continental Divide Raceway. I guess the car was somewhat of a mess from sitting outside and had a bunch of stuff that needed attention. He decided to paint it blue, and it's been that way ever since. The guy was nice enough to send me pictures of the car and how it looks now. It still sports the Holman & Moody 427.
I asked my Grandpa if he'd like to go see it. He asked me if the guy raced it. NO. He made a comment about it being a million dollar boat anchor if the guy wasn't going to race it. I don't think I'd be racing it either.
