Twelve REAL DEAL Cobras Visit Coker Tire

When you're around old cars 24/7, you start to become immune to the cool factor that old cars provide. And while we appreciate each and every old car out there, sometimes we just glaze over because it's "just another day in the office". A couple weeks ago, we had a group of visitors that shook us out of our day-to-day routine and made us think about the major cool factor of our jobs. Twelve, count 'em, REAL Shelby Cobras came to the Coker Tire headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee to hang out for the evening. This is once in a lifetime stuff for a car nut, and we took lots of pictures to capture the evening. A total of eight 289 Cobras and four 427 Cobras were in attendance, as well as a real '67 Shelby GT350 Mustang, which served as a support car. The reason for their visit involves a driving tour, put together by Tom Cotter, a well-known author (Cobra in the Barn, Corvette in the Barn, Hemi in the Barn to name a few) who happens to be a Cobra owner. Tom explained to us that he bought a 289 Cobra in 2001 and drove it from California to North Carolina. He drove the car to the Shelby National Meet in Charlotte, where he told Carroll Shelby of his road trip. Mr. Shelby loved the fact that Tom drove the car across country, and said "I didn't build trailer queens, I built cars that were meant to be driven". This statement from Carroll inspired Tom to assemble driving tours for real Cobras. And just for clarification, when we say "Real Cobra" we are referring to an 1962-1967 AC Cobra. These are not reproductions--these are real deal Cobras. In the six years of Cobra production, only around 1,000 cars were built, and many of them were raced. The total number of existing cars is quite small, so to see 12 Cobras in one place is pretty outstanding. Thousands upon thousands of Cobra replicas have been built, but they cannot compare to the real thing. These hand assembled cars have the ultimate wow factor, and Carroll Shelby laid hands on pretty much all of them. The Cobra tour has moved around to various places, but this year, it toured Northwest Georgia, Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee and Northern Alabama with a stop in the Chattanooga area. Tom has organized nine Cobra tours so far, and we're glad Coker Tire was part of this one! Several of the cars were rolling on our Michelin vintage radials, so we were certainly happy to see our tires on such high end cars. Enjoy the photos! [products]