The AARP card will be coming in the mail any day now; this is the year I turn 50. 1956, the year I was born, was the year of the greatest number of births in the United States of any year. That means people of my age represent the fattest lump in the population curve for the country. With so many contemporaries to compete with, the common thread for all of us 1956’ers it has been to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Succeeding in athletics, business, or politics is one way to rise above the herd, but those of us without any particular talents or charisma have to find more devious ways to make our mark on the world. My best shot at fame may be to bask in the reflected glory of my children’s accomplishments but that is not a sure bet at this point.
As I age, gracefully or otherwise, regular readers (both of you) will remember that I am struggling with the decision about what kit car to build. I am working up the courage to build a car from scratch in my suburban garage; I see this as a way to stave off Alzheimer’s Disease by mentally challenging myself with a large project during my rapidly approaching Silver Years. But I do not want to build just any kit car; I want to do something a bit different.
I do know that the car I want to build is going to be a roadster of some sort. Light, simple, open topped, nothing suggests the freedom of the road like a snug two seat sports car to blast down the highway of life into the impending sunset of my life. I may be on the road to Hell, but I am planning on enjoying the ride in style. Maybe at the end of my useful years I will give myself an automotive version of the Viking Funeral. With my last breath, I give The Man the finger and launch myself and my special hand built vehicle into an abyss of blazing glory.
But what exactly will that hand built be? I have already dismissed the idea of building a VW based dune buggy, not enough power to fulfill my lust for a low power to weight ratio. The other candidates are the speedy roller skate of the Lotus Seven or the brute power of the Shelby Cobra with a huge honking Ford V8 rumbling under the hood.
The Lotus Seven initially got short shrift from me because I thought that the kits only came from England and the mechanicals were difficult to come by. Thankfully my readers pointed me in the right direction toward some American kit suppliers who use greasy bits from easily obtainable sources in the US. And because the Lotus Seven kit yields a very small roadster, the enterprise would fit nicely in my 20’x 20’ suburban garage. But as cool as a Lotus Seven would be to build and own, it is not a Shelby Cobra.
Ah, the Cobra. To my generation of Ford-loving gear heads, the Cobra represents the apogee of the car culture. The Cobra is all that is good and light in the world of my generation. Other cars were faster and some were prettier, but no other cars strike a sympathetic cord in our souls like the coke-bottled shape of the Cobra. But the true attraction of the Cobra was the caged fury of the engine compartment. At the height of the madness, 427 cubic inches of pushrod powered Detroit Iron thumped within its breast. Seven litres of the finest in cutting edge, 1958 technology throbbed out a menacing sound and nearly unlimited torque. Imagine, if you will, more power than you can realistically put down onto the road through street tires. That is the essence of the Cobra.
But unlimited power comes at a price, as Saddam Hussein has come to discover. The Cobra is a relatively small car and shoehorning a huge lump of American V8 iron into the engine compartment is a very tight fit. Even if you opt for the smaller and lighter 5.0-liter V8 engine instead of the 7-litre monster, the engine compartment is challenged for daylight let alone space to work. And the weight of all that metal under the hood makes any suspension choice a compromise between effectiveness and heft to handle the load. The space for a V8 engine is so limited in the cobra that the driver’s foot pedals are off set to the left rather than straight ahead of the driver to make room for that monster engine.
Now here is where my latest epiphany comes into play. What if? What if instead of a massive V8 in the Cobra I built it with some other power plant? Something lighter and physically smaller that would make up for its lack of absolute power with a more compact and light package that would keep the power to weight ratio in the Insane Region?
My first thought was to adapt a V6 engine for use in the Cobra. While it would be lighter and shorter from front to back, the V6 arrangement makes the engine as wide as a V8 and the space issues of offsetting the driver’s pedals remain. If not a V6, then why not an Inline 6 engine? Long and narrow, an Inline 6 would leave lots of room at the sides of the engine and save hundreds of pounds over a large block V8. And imagine the novelty of opening the hood to reveal not just another boring V8, but the unique sight of a Six Cylinder engine in the engine compartment.
My next entry will examine the Inline Six engines I am considering for this project. Tell me what you think of a Cobra without a thumping Ford V8 in the engine compartment.