Messages

Doug, if Grossman smacked this one, I'm not aware of it. And sadly, Carter has been gone long enough now that when he appears in a photo it's a "Oh yeah, I recall that guy" kind of experience.

I note that a number of people agree that it would be a crime to restore this car, because it's so original. But is it? No. It wore its original paint in the photo above with Carter Gette circa '72 in the car with the Country Squire wagon looking to the right. A few years later the car was sold to two more owners, and it was given a restoration that included a repaint in Guardsman Blue. It stayed blue for at least 30 years thereafter until it was "depainted" using ice and a razor blade.
That is why the gold paint has so many spots of blue, and of course the finish looks pretty tired because it was heavily sanded before the repaint in blue. Which one might say is a type of created patina. Is this an unrestored Cobra? Nope. More accurately, it is an "un-restored" Cobra.

Maybe. But AC Cars, who built each of the '60s Cobras, put AC emblems on all the cars sold in Europe, as they were called AC Cobras. Those sold to Shelby had these AC emblems removed and replaced with round Cobra badges.

I'm not sure we will ever know for certain, unless there are references to him in some of the AC Owner's Club notes from then.

COB 6106 was the first AC 289 Sports built, and was retained by the AC factory as a demonstrator until its sale in '69 to David Brown. It was featured in the 10/67 issue of Motor magazine.

Sadly, we have heard nothing about the car since roughly 2007.

This slightly ratty early Cobra was photographed at SAAC-1 in Oakland, CA back in '76. It remains unidentified in my files. Anyone recognize it? The black CA plate is "ZFH-534" and the car appears to have a wooden dashboard.

Might anyone recall this early Cobra from SAAC-1 in '76? Looks as if it could use a restoration.

Does anyone know which 289 Cobra this is, pictured at SAAC-4 in Downingtown, PA in '79? Maybe someone recalls the COBRA-7 NY license plate?

The difficulty with "Vineyard Green" is the same as for "Bright Blue" which is that both were colors that were part of the AC Cars palette but had no corresponding color in the Ford paint catalog. When a paint repair was required for these colors, it generally required a custom-mixed paint to match it as closely as possible. I know that some folks have since found the appropriate codes for these colors and can obtain them from England, but an alternative is to find something close that is  more readily available in the thought that no one will actually recognize any faint difference that may exist.

And continuing in the small world department, surely everyone knows that in the group of people mentioned previously, Jay Sebring wasn't the only Cobra owner. Who saw Dennis Wilson, drummer in the Beach Boys, drag-racing his bright yellow 289 Cobra at some L.A. tracks in the late '60s?

I think the Ghostbusters are needed. Today, CSX 2093 is in England and being vintage-raced. But through some miracle, it has become a right-hand-drive car. I wonder who might be able to explain this. Surely no one acquires a famous car, hides it in his shed, and builds a clone to race, right?

Our records show Gagnard sold 3116 in '88. Its next owner, from Aptos, CA, consigned it in 2013 to Grand Prix Classics in La Jolla, CA. I lived in La Jolla at the time and photographed it before it was sold to a buyer from France. Here is one of the advertising photos of the car from that period:

The "AC 289 Sports" was named that to avoid confusion between it and the earlier leaf-spring cars that were still available when the latter was introduced. They are Cobras in every sense. And even though chassis numbers 6128-6132 exist, those were lengthened bare chassis built for use in a film for Paramount Studios that were not originally built as Cobras, even though most have been in the years since..

It is COB 6113, and Gerry sold it about 2 years ago to the current owners. My car is just 2 chassis numbers away, but has one big difference: the COX in its VIN denotes left hand drive. And an update to the earlier note that these were "built after Cobra production ended:" The AC 289 was AC's response to the Shelby 427 Cobra, built for the consumer who did not need a big-block but wanted the improved coil spring chassis. They were built on the standard assembly line along with the CSX cars headed to Shelby. The first sale of an AC 289 was in the fall of '65, and the last was delivered in early '69.