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he idea started innocently
enough; at a Cobra tour several
years ago, I asked Cobra Regis-
trar Ned Scudder if there had ever
been a Cobra in Alaska.
“
We have none on record
,” he said.
“I’ve never heard of one.”
Interesting. In my eighteen years
of Cobra ownership, I have driven
CSX2490 more than 30,000 miles. It
began when I bought it in Northern
California and drove it cross-country,
about 3,300 miles, to my home in
North Carolina. The adventure was
written up by my co-driver, Peter
Egan, and featured in the January,
2002, issue of
Road & Track
magazine.
Soon after, I saw Carroll Shelby at
the Nashville SAAC Meet. He was im-
pressed with the story and com-
mented, “
That’s what I’m talking
about. I didn’t build no damn trailer
queens!
”
I took that as my personal march-
ing orders to take my car where no
Cobra has been before. My friend Jim
Maxwell (CSX2401 and CSX3288) and
I decided to organize annual tours
through interesting areas for authen-
tic CSX2000 and CSX3000 Cobras. So
began annual tours throughout the
East Coast, Northeast and Midwest,
usually with 15 to 25 happy Cobra
owners participating.
We “partnered” with Drew Serb –
who has put on dozens of Cobra tours
throughout the west — including two
memorable and scenic East-Meets-
West tours through Montana,
Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. So when
Ned told me that a Cobra has been to
every state except one, I took that as a
challenge. After dinner at one of our
Cobra tours, I asked how many of our
regulars would be interested in a pos-
sible future tour to Alaska someday?
Nobody raised their hand. These
are folks who drive their cars through
rain, snow and cold without tops in-
stalled. These are folks who change
fuel pumps and rebuild carburetors in
dusty parking lots. I would go into bat-
tle with these folks. And they would go
into battle with me, but apparently
Alaska was a bridge too far. Not even
my tour buddy Jim Maxwell was in-
terested.
“
Too bumpy,
” “
Too cold
,” “
Too
many mosquitos,
” was what I heard
most often. I decided that someday
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2019 64
– Tom Cotter
T