AC Cobra in Germany: Real or replica...?

[SunDude]

Does anyone recognize this Cobra?  Is it an original or a replica?  Any chance it could be CSX2238?
   
   These photos were taken at the Regensburger Classic Rallye in July 2009, and are posted to Flickr and to Wikimedia Commons (which is how I found them).
   
   Thanks.
   
   
   

[dkp_cobra]

Don't know whether this is the real CSX 2238. But on page 190 "COBRA: The story of an icon" you can see CSX 2238. Looks totally different from your picture []

[Migge]

The rims don't look right, I can see a nut on the front wheel

[westcott]

I was there the same year with my old Crendon and couldn'd see any real cobra.
   
   The wheels on this car are replica Halibrands with screwed rims, may be Compomotive or  Image Wheels.
   
   The car could be a Hawk or ERA and was one of the org team cars.

[SunDude]

quote:Originally posted by dkp_cobra
   
Don't know whether this is the real CSX 2238. But on page 190 "COBRA: The story of an icon" you can see CSX 2238. Looks totally different from your picture []
   

   
   You mean, this photo of CSX2238...?
   
   
   
   

quote:Originally posted by westcott
   
I was there the same year with my old Crendon and couldn'd see any real cobra.
   
   The wheels on this car are replica Halibrands with screwed rims, may be Compomotive or  Image Wheels.
   
   The car could be a Hawk or ERA and was one of the org team cars.

   
   Thanks for this.  It's confusing when they allow replicas into vintage motorsports events.

[westcott]

As long as they are registered as 30 year old cars.....

[aaron]

quote:Originally posted by SunDude
   
   Thanks for this.  It's confusing when they allow replicas into vintage motorsports events.
   

   
   Brian , you know aswell as the rest of us do there are plenty of replicas racing in historic motorsports, it is quite simple the original wrecked car sits in a garage while a new one is built, you then produce the paperwork for the original car then get FIA paperwork for the replica as is has been built to FIA standards.

[rstainer]

Aaron, Brian,
   
   The 'original wrecked car sits in a garage' is the exception.
   
   The Register appendix listing Replica leaf-spring cobras has twelve FIA HTPd replicas where there are no remains of the original. The appendix, on the ACOC website available to all members, makes interesting reading!
   
   RS

[nikbj68]

To call the Regensburger Classic Rallye a Vintage Motorsports event is a bit of a push!
   
   As good as they are, you could not have a Hawk getting an FiA HTP, never mind some less authentically engineered 'replicas'(which could more accurately be called lookalikes or evocations or caricatures in some cases!), even the 'stock' Kirkhams wouldn`t pass muster.
   The replicas we see racing today are purpose-built and (to a greater or lesser degree!) are identical to original Cobras currently racing.
   It hurts to see 2238 in the state shown above!

[TLegate]

As 2238 testifies, Americans own guns and like to use them. Not all of them like Cobras....

[rstainer]

Nick,
   
   To say that FIA HTP replicas are 'authentically engineered' defies observation: it is simply not possible for them to be as fast as they are without very inauthentic engineering.
   
   One FIA 'historic' cobra considered recently that appears in many prestigious events is 114kg lighter than its original FIA counterpart; this addition of lightness relies on techniques unheard of fifty years ago.
   
   RS

[A-Snake]

quote:Originally posted by nikbj68
   

   The replicas we see racing today are purpose-built and (to a greater or lesser degree!) are identical to original Cobras currently racing.
   
   

   
   Nick, Don't you think that many of the "original Cobras currently racing" are highly modified from their period racing configuration? []

[nikbj68]

Agreed on both counts, Gentlemen. I was trying to differentiate between the replicas one would expect your 'man in the street' to own, which could never attain an HTP, and those which we see on track. The issue you mention, Robin, are another matter!
   The Hawk cars are to my eye some of the most accurate looking(and I don`t think the car at the heart of this thread is one), and when I said "less authentically engineered " I refer to cars of various manufacturers which bear less & less resemblance to the Cobra, beit in body shape, chassis design or interior styling, which really strain the true definition of the word replica beyond it`s limits!

[Laurence Kent]

Getting back to the original question as to whether what we see in the picture is the real thing or not, I must say I am surprised that besides the wheels being a giveaway, no one noticed that the doors only have two holes for side curtains. All five original FIA AC Cobras had three, and I don't know of any original Mk II or II that only had two! Furthermore, the shape of the car in the back looks like a MK III 427, as though whoever made the mould, took the back of a 427 and then grafted the protrusions and tried to make the car look like some sort of FIA Mk II.

[aaron]

I WILL NOT GET INTO THIS DEBATE ,WHOS ROUND IS IT ? I WILL HAVE A BOTTLE OF COBRA LAGER AND MAKE IT A LARGE ONE ! []