{"id":55,"date":"2010-02-18T02:17:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T08:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=55"},"modified":"2018-03-06T17:12:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T23:12:59","slug":"first-you-have-to-sign-this-release-%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"First, you have to sign this release \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think of all the cars have that have come and gone since the first three wheeled Benz (\u201csnuck\u201d out of the garage and driven by his wife and son) hit the road in 1885, it inevitably will bring to mind of building a list of the greatest, most valuable, most beautiful, etc. But the one car that\u2019s on several of those lists, is the creation of Carroll Shelby, the Cobra. I won\u2019t attempt to detail it\u2019s storied history, that\u2019s been \u201cdone\u201d \u2026 rather this blog is more on the experience of owning one.<\/p>\n

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To begin with, it simply doesn\u2019t drive like any other car \u2026 please don\u2019t interpret this necessarily as a good thing. Cobra\u2019s have a habit of confusing of the front of the car with the rear. Step on the gas at your own peril \u2026 be certain to have the car pointed in the general direction you want to go. Not that the car will actually go that way, but much like a ballerina or ice skater, it just gives you a point of reference when it starts to spin. It\u2019s the only car I know of that is steered with the throttle and brakes \u2026 the steering wheel is actually used very little if you\u2019re in a rush. This can be very disconcerting, when at 100mph, the wheels lose traction and start spinning furiously when the lash is applied.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Often, I get the question \u201chow fast will it go?\u201d Not having a death wish, I don\u2019t really know. I\u2019ve read the story of one particularly intrepid soul who was clocked in excess of 190mph on a public road in England \u2026 supposedly this item was debated in the House of Lords and resulted in speed limits on England\u2019s then autobahn-like highways. Cobras certainly have the horsepower for over 200mph speeds, but the brick-like aerodynamics make this probably impossible without going airborne.<\/p>\n

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You can tell who are your true friends, when after confining them in the passenger\u2019s seats with a five point racing harness so tight it restricts breathing, they still actually want to ride in the thing. Everyone always asks \u201cwhy\u201d when I hand them earplugs upon sitting down \u2026 those that decline, sincerely wish they hadn\u2019t when I turn the key. When the oversized engine literally roars to life, it\u2019s startling. OK, … slowly we pull out of the garage and head for the feeder road of the freeway as we\u2019re going to need A LOT of space. Now, on the floor! With acceleration akin to jumping down an elevator shaft (you may actually get severe tunnel vision) attached to the worlds\u2019 biggest paint shaker, and God-awful noise similar to having your head in a metal garbage can being struck with hammers during a category 5 hurricane, the Cobra devours road at such a ferocious pace that it simply can\u2019t be understood, only experienced. I stopped consuming Corvettes at stop lights … with less horsepower and almost 1,500 pounds heavier than a Cobra, it\u2019s pointless \u2026 all it does is waste expensive tires and inhale gas. And with a Cobra, that last item is always in short supply. At times, it dips below two miles per gallon \u2026 well, OK, most of the time. So all trips are taken with a mindful eye on where the gas stations are. When we get back, no one steps out over the scorchingly hot side exhausts, without being at least a little \u201cshaken-up\u201d, so to speak. They tell me that although it scared the absolute **** out of them, they knew they\u2019d be “just fine” because I\u2019d been driving it for so many years. That\u2019s when I tell them about the old axiom about Cobras: \u201cThere are no drivers in Cobras, only passengers\u201d. And about 50% of the time, I add how pleased I am that this time we wound up going the in correct direction too!<\/p>\n

Carroll said that the name “Cobra” came to him in a dream … but, for the other racing car companies, it was more like the beginning of a nightmare. The racing success of Cobras amongst those \u201cin the know\u201d is formidable. In 1965, due to the extreme cantankerous nature of the Cobra at high speeds (over 150mph), Shelby decided to put on a roof. The result was the \u201cCobra Daytona Coupe\u201d, the only American car to this very day, ever to win the FIA World’s Manufacturer’s Championship for GT cars, beating Europe’s best; Porsche, Ferrari, Jaguar, and Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

So a ride in a Cobra, is seeing, hearing and feeling a World Champion \u2026 a pedigreed race car that just happens to be (barely) street legal. It\u2019s also probably about the least street-friendly car in the country \u2026 no radio, A\/C, windows, door handles, glove box, headrest, sound-deadening \u2026 no anything really \u2026 except a couple of seats, a huge engine and the biggest grin in town from whoever is lucky enough to sit in the driver\u2019s seat. Cobra owners call it “Being bitten by the Snake”.<\/p>\n

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When you think of all the cars have that have come and gone since the first three wheeled Benz (\u201csnuck\u201d out of the garage and driven by his wife and son) hit the road in 1885, it inevitably will bring to mind of building a list of the greatest, most valuable, most beautiful, etc. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}