"If you lived..." LOL- there's a mouthful in those words! As for a Plum Crazy Daytona, you weren't going to get one of those because they weren't using Plum Crazy at the time. Red? That's another story.
That's why the majority of 427 Cobra owners never lived to make the first payment. They were actually more dangerous than that trip to Southeast Asia those guys were facing.
The new car dealers were, and still are, all too happy to make loans to GI's with little or no credit history because they know they can simply call the GI's First Sargent if the payments aren't made on time. I've only owned four brand-new vehicles in my lifetime and two of them (a new Pontiac and a Harley Sportster) were while I was basically a kid in the military. I've since wised up and don't buy new vehicles anymore.
The story I got was that they only made the 500 so it could be nascar raced and all the cars were spoken for. Young and dumb, I never thought to take it higher. About them cobra's...a guy I went to school with had a daddy that owned a dealership and one day, this kid comes cruising to school in a 427 cobra. British racing green with the white circle on the door for numbers, and of course the leg burning side pipes. What a car... dealer sticker was $7500. Who knew back then? Of course, to a guy pumping gas at the local shell station, it may as well have been 75 million.
Later on somewhere around 1972, I'm scoping out a Lime green 440 4 speed plymouth superbird at a Jersey dealership for 1500 bucks. Brought the wife with me and just my luck, she spots this super clean 57 Imperial for $500, so pfffft, there went the superbird. Instead, I come home in a land yacht.
The coolest thing about the Cobra in the movie "Spinout", they towed it with a Duesenberg !!! could you imagine that combo coming across an auction block today ???!!!???
no, but I can tell you them things will take an awful hit and survive. We were hit when a 1 ton dodge van ran a red light and t-boned the yacht. The van went home on a wrecker, and we drove the Imperial home.
Oh boy! I am getting old and getting things wrong. I don't know why I said Peter Fonda. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Sorry everybody.
Very true. I grew up on a military base. Camp Drum in upstate N.Y. It was a game between us kids to spot the bad ass car. They were everywhere. Vettes, GTO's, Camaros, Chevelles, Shelby Mustangs, etc. The cool thing was, almost all of them had the biggest engine they could get. A friend of my dad came by the house one day to show off his Hemi Road Runner. Man, that was a cool time to be a kid getting into cars.
Yes that was him. Franco: And now my friend, the first-a rule of Italian driving. [Franco rips off his rear-view mirror and throws it out of the car] Franco: What's-a behind me is not important! His last feature movie was with Claude van Damme (AKA crap!) he did a TV movie last.
I watched it the other night and was so tickled that the TBucket finally beat the cobra near the end of the movie.
Don't quite know why but I absolutely love the Cobra Coupes, I would say they are my all time favorite O/T car! Sadly though one of Australia's all time greatest touring car driver was killed in a replica racing it in 'Targa Tasmania' a few years ago. Doc.
I've never seen one in British Racing Green before.... Another one my buddy sent me... Thanks Sling shot!!...
H. Loud Ford dealer in Pasadena had a 427 cobra on the show room floor for 2 years. deal after deal fell thru Mostly because buyers couldn't finance because of insurance companies wouldn't touch that car. went it finally sold the sales man tole me they unloaded that White Elephant for $5000, it had 62 test miles. a HAMB buddy just sent of a cobra that I'd like to build
Man, till now, I never realized how rare that green machine was. I can't even find a pic of a British racing green cobra with the big block, circle on the door and white stripes. That puppy may have been the only one made in 1966. Sigh... if only.
The Jalopy Journal
