The Texas Hill Country, just outside Austin, Texas, is one of the most beautiful areas of the country with its scenic vistas, majestic mesas, and miles and miles of twisting, winding roads. And that layout is exactly why the Texas Cobra Club holds their annual Spring Meet there; it gives them an opportunity to swap tips, enjoy the scenery, and see for themselves all the cool snakes they have been reading about for the past year in their e-mails.
This loose-knit club started as an offshoot of the Club Cobra Web site, and has since grown into a regional club with over 300 members-a good number of whom recently showed up in Round Rock, Texas, to get reacquainted face-to-face.
Fajita TimeThough the weekend starts for some on Friday evening, ogling each other's vehicles in the hotel parking lot, the real festivities kick off Saturday morning, with a group photo in the parking lot of a nearby go-kart track.
The parking lot of the El Arroyo Restaurant (where everybody ate a great Tex-Mex breakfast) in nearby Bee Cave was reserved for Cobras, making it the perfect location for an impromptu car show. Door prizes were provided by Finish Line, and new club president John Russell was elected by a hand vote.
After everyone was filled-up on enchiladas and fajitas, the group went on a scenic cruise through Hill Country to the rustic town of Wimberly. The roads wound through the trees and climbed up and down through the hilly terrain. It was great hearing the exhaust notes reverberate off the stone canyon walls as the Cobras rocketed along. And you could hear them coming for miles-something we were pleased the local constabulary didn't hear.
There were some great cars; Dallas kit assembler Jay Nordstrom showed up with a number of cars that run out of his stables, and Greg and Vicky Sellards brought out their Superformance Brock coupe.
On display in kit form was a new Cobra replica, the Hurricane. Based on the old Component Craft kits made in Texas a while back, the Hurricane has been upgraded and is now manufactured in Kansas City, Missouri. At $17,000, it looks like a strong contender in the intro-level market.
Another new kit was the Lone Star LS-40, a Ford GT40-like kit with Ford Focus 4-cylinder power. The prototype shown still needs some work, but Lone Star expects to start building production examples shortly.
A killer combination was the silver ERA Cobra replica sporting CAMMER license plates. Sure enough, this monster, owned by Dee Walters, is powered by one of those ground-pounding single-overhead-cam Ford 427 drag-racing engines from the mid-'60s. These ultra-rare engines go to collectors for huge bucks, so it was nice to see one in a running vehicle, instead of perched on a stand in a museum. Walters says it has been de-tuned to around 600 hp for street use.
In a sea of predominately blue, red, and gray snakes, the Unique Motorcars roadster of Kelly and Jodina Mullins' really stood out in its brilliant-orange paint-it almost glowed in the dark! One of the most beautifully detailed cars, Tom and Janet Batchelor's Lone Star (KIT CAR Dec. '01) combined flames, a deep House of Color Candy Apple Red paint job, and a fuel-injected engine with matching red anodized ram stacks!
The most unusual Cobra replica might have been the FFR Roadster owned by Pete Gibbs. Gibbs is in the plastics biz, and has made a number of items for his car that are now carried by Finish Line. These include Lexan heat shields for side pipes (to prevent leg burns) and molded doorpockets and glove compartments. But the most noticeable item was his hard top, which sports removable gullwing windows, a moon roof, and even an interior light. This works well with his custom-fabricated air-conditioning system, which is neatly concealed by a custom console and vent outlets.
From big to small, all the Texas snakes looked great, and everyone is looking forward to seeing this low-pressure event continue to grow. Special thanks to 2005 club president Ed Csoltko for putting on such a fun, low-key program and for inviting us along.