edwardb
06-22-2014, 10:24 PM
Made it safely home this afternoon from the 2014 London Cobra Show. This was our third show with our Mk3 Roadster. As usual, lots to see and do, including meeting up with folks we've gotten to know. Absolutely will go again next year. Miscellaneous ramblings from our experience:
One of the bigger headlines this year was the weather. Each day Thursday through Sunday had rain the in forecast at some point. Typical pop-up summer storms with pockets of really heavy downpours. We trailered down and back, so that part wasn't a problem for us. But many others weren't so lucky and there were lots of rain stories. We went on the Clifton Mill cruise on Friday, and had our own first rain experience on the way back to the hotel. 15-20 minutes in a pretty heavy downpour then another 20 minutes or so with no rain. So the car mainly dried out, and since we were moving the interior didn't get soaked. But now we can finally say we've added rain to our cruising experience. None the worse for wear. Used my wipers for the first time. But the Rain-X worked better than the wipers, and didn't do anything for the water on the inside of the windshield. There was a light misty rain on the way to the Speedway Saturday morning before the parade, but that was it for the day and it was nice after that for the downtown London show.
Talking to one of the Ohio Cobra Club guys, was told there were 173 registrants. There have been higher years, but also lower. Slightly higher than last year. The competing show in town, whatever that was about, didn't seem to affect the attendance.
One of our missions for this trip was to look at all the colors and zero in on the color for my Mk4 build. I've been leaning toward red/white, just like the Mk3. It's probably still in the lead, but there certainly are a lot of red/white cars. Seriously looking at a blue/white scheme, with a specific blue that I like. I had hoped we would be sure by now, but no... We walked around and took a lot of pictures. Will study more plus talk to my painter and decide (maybe...).
I finally broke down this year and ventured onto main street for the charity rides. Attended the driver's meeting, and they required everyone to sign a waiver (a first from what I understand) and ask everyone to tone it down with the burn-outs and to keep the speed down. Apparently insurance is getting very difficult to obtain. I'm not surprised. Gave three rides in my Mk3. The first was a little weanie (hopefully the guy didn't feel cheated) but I spun on the launch pretty bad and then lifted a bit before hooking up and getting going. Still well over the max speed by the cones where you're supposed to shut down, but not the hardest acceleration ever. My second and third runs were much better, with (I think) happy customers. In both cases I was well over the max speed before the cones, so shut it down. Just based on observations, I'm not so sure many others followed the requested guidelines. Good thing I ran early or I may have pushed it harder than I did. Anyway, it was fun and glad I finally did it. I will definitely do it again.
Looked over the Factory Five 289 FIA car quite a bit. It's cool, and certainly was getting a lot of attention. I don't think it's for me. I'm still a much bigger fan of the more aggressive 427 body. But I think FF has a winner here. Also looked a bit at the 427 All Girls Build recently shown on TV. Nice car with some interesting touches. Used suede on the dash instead of vinyl. I liked it. The 18 inch Boyd wheels looked good on TV. Look even better in person. Wonder if they're going to be available?
Had a nice shady spot on main street to display the Mk3. Lots of traffic and lots of good conversations. Plenty of guys come by saying they are building one and ask a lot of questions. I was there just a few years ago, so happy to help and really enjoy that part.
The Mk3 ran great the whole 4 days. One of the Lucas switches on the dash (fan override) literally fell apart when I switched it one time. No big deal, but will be a little bit of a pain to replace. Even harder now with ********** out of stock and not knowing if they'll sell them in the future. I wasn't paying attention and managed to run the fuel down to the "E" peg on the way back from the downtown show. We were literally praying out loud as we were stumbling down the street by the hotel and pretty much coasted into a gas station. Nice planning and observation on my part.
The banquet on Saturday was pretty much as it's been in the past with more fund raising for CF. We scored a couple of items from the silent auction, including a pretty cool DART poster that will look good in my garage. Matches the DART block in my Mk4. The speaker this year was Alan Grant, who I've heard before and he's interesting. But at the last minute Peter Brock also joined (he was at the other show the previous night) so both Alan and Peter shared the stage and exchanged stories. I found it fascinating, and a real treat. They drew for the raffle car, and (again) the winner wasn't present. Been that way all three years I've been there. They presented a check for $60K to CF, bringing the total for this event and club to around $900K. Really impressive! The big surprise for the night though was the end they rolled in next year's raffle car. Already complete and already running! It's a Superperformance with a Roush 427 engine. Pretty impressive to say the least. It will get a lot more exposure than previous donor cars (including SEMA) and they are expecting this to put the total after next year to over $1 million for CF. Again, really impressive.
Those are some of my observations. If you haven't gone before, I certainly encourage it. If you have, see you there again next year!
I didn't take too many pics of a general nature. But this one is pretty cool. Pictured are about 1/3 of the cars stopped for lunch at Clifton Mill during our cruise on Friday. My red/white Mk3 is in the center near the entrance door to the mill by the "Cruise-In" sign.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab234/edwardb123/Factory%20Five%20Mark%203%20Roadster%20Build/Misc%20Pics/IMG_0312_zpsbcabcadc.jpg (http://s867.photobucket.com/user/edwardb123/media/Factory%20Five%20Mark%203%20Roadster%20Build/Misc%20Pics/IMG_0312_zpsbcabcadc.jpg.html)
One of the bigger headlines this year was the weather. Each day Thursday through Sunday had rain the in forecast at some point. Typical pop-up summer storms with pockets of really heavy downpours. We trailered down and back, so that part wasn't a problem for us. But many others weren't so lucky and there were lots of rain stories. We went on the Clifton Mill cruise on Friday, and had our own first rain experience on the way back to the hotel. 15-20 minutes in a pretty heavy downpour then another 20 minutes or so with no rain. So the car mainly dried out, and since we were moving the interior didn't get soaked. But now we can finally say we've added rain to our cruising experience. None the worse for wear. Used my wipers for the first time. But the Rain-X worked better than the wipers, and didn't do anything for the water on the inside of the windshield. There was a light misty rain on the way to the Speedway Saturday morning before the parade, but that was it for the day and it was nice after that for the downtown London show.
Talking to one of the Ohio Cobra Club guys, was told there were 173 registrants. There have been higher years, but also lower. Slightly higher than last year. The competing show in town, whatever that was about, didn't seem to affect the attendance.
One of our missions for this trip was to look at all the colors and zero in on the color for my Mk4 build. I've been leaning toward red/white, just like the Mk3. It's probably still in the lead, but there certainly are a lot of red/white cars. Seriously looking at a blue/white scheme, with a specific blue that I like. I had hoped we would be sure by now, but no... We walked around and took a lot of pictures. Will study more plus talk to my painter and decide (maybe...).
I finally broke down this year and ventured onto main street for the charity rides. Attended the driver's meeting, and they required everyone to sign a waiver (a first from what I understand) and ask everyone to tone it down with the burn-outs and to keep the speed down. Apparently insurance is getting very difficult to obtain. I'm not surprised. Gave three rides in my Mk3. The first was a little weanie (hopefully the guy didn't feel cheated) but I spun on the launch pretty bad and then lifted a bit before hooking up and getting going. Still well over the max speed by the cones where you're supposed to shut down, but not the hardest acceleration ever. My second and third runs were much better, with (I think) happy customers. In both cases I was well over the max speed before the cones, so shut it down. Just based on observations, I'm not so sure many others followed the requested guidelines. Good thing I ran early or I may have pushed it harder than I did. Anyway, it was fun and glad I finally did it. I will definitely do it again.
Looked over the Factory Five 289 FIA car quite a bit. It's cool, and certainly was getting a lot of attention. I don't think it's for me. I'm still a much bigger fan of the more aggressive 427 body. But I think FF has a winner here. Also looked a bit at the 427 All Girls Build recently shown on TV. Nice car with some interesting touches. Used suede on the dash instead of vinyl. I liked it. The 18 inch Boyd wheels looked good on TV. Look even better in person. Wonder if they're going to be available?
Had a nice shady spot on main street to display the Mk3. Lots of traffic and lots of good conversations. Plenty of guys come by saying they are building one and ask a lot of questions. I was there just a few years ago, so happy to help and really enjoy that part.
The Mk3 ran great the whole 4 days. One of the Lucas switches on the dash (fan override) literally fell apart when I switched it one time. No big deal, but will be a little bit of a pain to replace. Even harder now with ********** out of stock and not knowing if they'll sell them in the future. I wasn't paying attention and managed to run the fuel down to the "E" peg on the way back from the downtown show. We were literally praying out loud as we were stumbling down the street by the hotel and pretty much coasted into a gas station. Nice planning and observation on my part.
The banquet on Saturday was pretty much as it's been in the past with more fund raising for CF. We scored a couple of items from the silent auction, including a pretty cool DART poster that will look good in my garage. Matches the DART block in my Mk4. The speaker this year was Alan Grant, who I've heard before and he's interesting. But at the last minute Peter Brock also joined (he was at the other show the previous night) so both Alan and Peter shared the stage and exchanged stories. I found it fascinating, and a real treat. They drew for the raffle car, and (again) the winner wasn't present. Been that way all three years I've been there. They presented a check for $60K to CF, bringing the total for this event and club to around $900K. Really impressive! The big surprise for the night though was the end they rolled in next year's raffle car. Already complete and already running! It's a Superperformance with a Roush 427 engine. Pretty impressive to say the least. It will get a lot more exposure than previous donor cars (including SEMA) and they are expecting this to put the total after next year to over $1 million for CF. Again, really impressive.
Those are some of my observations. If you haven't gone before, I certainly encourage it. If you have, see you there again next year!
I didn't take too many pics of a general nature. But this one is pretty cool. Pictured are about 1/3 of the cars stopped for lunch at Clifton Mill during our cruise on Friday. My red/white Mk3 is in the center near the entrance door to the mill by the "Cruise-In" sign.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab234/edwardb123/Factory%20Five%20Mark%203%20Roadster%20Build/Misc%20Pics/IMG_0312_zpsbcabcadc.jpg (http://s867.photobucket.com/user/edwardb123/media/Factory%20Five%20Mark%203%20Roadster%20Build/Misc%20Pics/IMG_0312_zpsbcabcadc.jpg.html)