ned scudder is the cobra registrar. how did that happen?ned scudder is the cobra registrar. how did...

here is no one more impor-tant in the Cobra world thanthe Registrar. He is the com-

piler of facts who sorts the wheat fromthe chaff. He is the final word on whatis and what isn’t. And he is proba-bly the single person most respon-sible, today, for the Cobra being agenuine blue chip investment inthe automotive world. The regis-trar isn’t elected or appointed, con-secrated or anointed. According tosome people, the registrar is eitherYoda, Luke Skywalker or DarthVader.

A marque like the Cobra canonly have one registrar. Imagine ifthere were two: you don’t like whatone says about your car so you goto the other one. Daddy says youcannot stay up past your bedtimeso you ask Mommy. With the his-tory and provenance of valuablecars, that wouldn’t work. The wayit does work is that all owners rec-ognize the registrar’s authority and,like it or not, agree with it or not, theyunderstand that in the Cobra worldthere is no higher authority. And that’sthe way it needs to be.

So, how did the Cobra registrarrise to this lofty position? It didn’t hap-pen overnight, and no one bequeathedhim a vast treasure trove of infor-mation. He collected bits andpieces, here and there, beginningwhen the cars were only a fewyears old and not many otherswho weren’t owners cared aboutthem. He slowly assembled a col-lection of details that took shapeas more were added to it. It was

an undertaking he began on his own;he wasn’t directed by anyone else, andwhen he started he had no real ideawhere it would eventually lead.

Owners come and go but the reg-

istrar remains, rock-steady as a reli-able reference source, ready to answerquestions and dispense informationthat he has collected over the pastforty-plus years. Cobra owners are for-tunate there is such a person who em-bodies the highest standards ofhonesty and accuracy because the al-

ternative would be like the wild west.A car’s “history” would be whatever itsowner said it was. If this was the case,do you think they would be as sought-after and valuable as they are today?

Here’s another little-known fact.The Cobra Registrar operates inde-pendently of SAAC and any otherowner or enthusiast group. SAACwillingly assists the registrar andthe registrar shares all of the datahe has collected with SAAC, butSAAC neither directs nor controlswhat the registrar says or does. It’sthe same with all registrars; theyare completely independent andtheir work product is their own.Ned Scudder didn’t become theCobra registrar when someonerubbed a brass lamp causing himto appear in a flash of smoke. Likea lot of other Cobra enthusiasts(and eventual Cobra owners),Scudder wasn’t quite in high schoolin 1963 when he got his first look

at a Cobra. And it was definitely loveat first sight. SAAC: So, tell us where it all began.SCUDDER: I was accompanying mydad to the annual New York Interna-tional Automobile Show. It was April1963. We went every year, and wewould go on Friday, which was set-up

day and the public was not al-lowed in. I would pick up variouspress kits which I would takehome. I was also able to sit insome of the cars. In 1963 therewas a little race Cobra there andI just fell in love with it. I don’trecall the serial number at thispoint, but the Shelby American

The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2015 93

Ned Scudder is the Cobra Registrar. How did that happen? – Rick Kopec

T

“According to some people, the registraris either Yoda, Luke Skywalker

or Darth Vader.”

press kit carried a picture of the car. Itwas a black 289 (which I recognizenow was a LeMans Replica) and itssmall size and V8 power made it theperfect combination of sports car/hotrod; as good-looking a vehicle as youcould ever find. In my first year of highschool, I would always read Car andDriver, Motor Trend, Road & Trackand Hot Rod and they stoked my in-terest in cars. I obviously had no real-ization at the time that I would everown something like that. We didn’thave a high school in our area and Iwould’ve had to go twelve or thirteenmiles to the high school they desig-nated for us, and it was not a greathigh school. So I was packed up andsent off to Deerfield Academy in Deer-field, Massachusetts. I kept all of mymagazine subscriptions. I happened tobe on spring break in 1964 when whatshould there be at the New York autoshow but a wonderful maroon 289Cobra (2316). It had chrome wires andjust looked fantastic. I took a pictureof it. I had yet to see an actual Cobraon the street. Nevertheless, I thoughtthey were fantastic. There was justsomething about them I couldn’t ex-plain. I didn’t know what it was. Theyhad a magnetic affect on me.SAAC:We’re sure you can recall whenyou saw your first one on the street.All Cobra enthusiasts can.SCUDDER: I first saw one in LakePlacid, New York, where we werelucky enough to spend our summers.There was a guy there named RedLaFountain who owned a restaurantcalled the Steak and Stinger. We knewRed very well and he was quite thecharacter. It was probably the bestrestaurant in town and we went thereabout once a week. I loved eating thereand I liked Red. One day I saw himdriving around in a Cobra and said,“Holy $#@% !” It was a dark green 289and he had “Steak and StingerRestaurant” lettered on the doors. Ilater discovered it was 2120. SAAC: Did you get a ride in that car?SCUDDER: A brief one. We went upthe road and back just so he couldmove through the gears and ask,“What do you think of that?”SAAC: And what did you think?

SCUDDER:Whoa! It pinned my headback. It was everything I thought itmight be. We only went straight and itwas a worm-and-sector car. I did get agood Cobra ride a little later on. A guyby the name of Peter DeSilva was ourneighbor in Lake Placid. We were thesame age and became friends. He andI were into all manner of strangethings as teenagers together: bicycles,girls, boats, cars. His sister got mar-ried in the summer of 1965 and one ofPeter’s friends showed up in a BritishRacing Green rack-and-pinion 289Cobra. He took everybody for ridesand I can remember him going out onthis wonderful windy road, the Wilm-ington road they called it, and hefloored the thing in first gear. Hemissed the shift into second andrevved the living snot out of the motorbut it held together. We were doingover 60 by the time he shifted into sec-ond gear. It was a very memorableride. This car turned out to be 2521,the car that Bill Whitley ended upbuying. The original owner was JohnKing. SAAC: Did your Cobra appear at thispoint?SCUDDER: Not quite. When I gradu-ated from high school I got an unspec-tacular Chevy and later traded it for afairly damaged GTO convertible.When I got out of college my dad hadsaid that if I graduated in four yearswithout stretching it out to five, hewould go halves with me on a car. Hefigured that it was going to be some-thing brand new. When I told him ex-actly what it was intending, he kind ofraised one eyebrow and said, “Huh?” I

found a Cobra in Kentucky and wentdown there and bought 2306. It was1972 and I was not quite a year out ofcollege. I paid the owner, Ed Maxwell,$5500 bucks for the car. I tried to beathim down to $5000 but he absolutelywouldn’t hear of it. I drove it homefrom Kentucky up to Lake Placid, NewYork. And my parents freaked. My fa-ther said, “You said you were getting aFord and I thought you were talkingabout some kind of a Mustang. I didn’tthink you were getting something thissmall. You’re going to kill yourself inthis car.” Initially he said, “You’re noteven 23 years-old. I want to go for aride in this thing and see how fast itreally is.” I tried to feather it a littlebit, but still he could tell. He said, “Imight just prohibit you from ever driv-ing this car.” I said, “Number one, youcan’t because I’m over 21. But if thefact that I’m still dependent upon youto a certain extent (because I didn’thave a place of my own yet) is of criti-cal importance, I’ll park the thing andride my bike until you think I’ve gotenough maturity to drive it.” He re-lented and I drove the car and neverhad an incident. I repaired it andcleaned it up. About three-and-a-halfyears after I bought it I came up witha plan with three friends to create amagazine. I moved to Princeton, NewJersey and sold the car for $10K to fi-nance my partnership in New JerseyMonthly magazine.SAAC: And you were Cobraless. Forhow long?SCUDDER: I worked in Princeton fora while. In late 1976 it was only a yearor so after I sold 2306 and I got the


Scudder’s first Cobra, CSX2306.

itch again. I was making decentmoney and I said to myself, “Thesecars are not getting any less expen-sive. If I look around I could probablyput some kind of deal together.”SAAC: Let’s back up a second. Thiswas in 1976. In 1972 the Cobra Clubwas started.SCUDDER: I joined the Cobra Clubin the spring of 1972 when I bought2306. I was one of the early members.Bruce Jodar and Mark Buckheim wererunning it. In 1973 I went up to a won-derful little Cobra Cub gathering inthe spring at Lime Rock Park. It wasthe Cobra Club’s first official gather-ing in the northeast. There were tenCobras there and nobody had everseen such a thing.SAAC:When did you become addictedto Cobra serial numbers?SCUDDER: I began collecting a fewserial numbers when I was in college,knowing full well that I was going tobe looking for 289 Cobra at somepoint. I saved all kinds of magazineand newspaper ads, just so that if andwhen I was seriously looking and thetime came, I knew where some carswere and that would be a good place tostart looking.SAAC: At that point, did the actualCobra serial numbers have any mean-ing to you or was it just a way to de-scribe a particular car?SCUDDER: The only meaning theyhad to me at the time was that Iwanted a car above CSX2200. By thatpoint I had at least learned that Iwould prefer a rack-and-pinion car toa worm-and-sector car. And I wantedthat half-inch wider lip on the wheelsbecause I thought they looked better. Ialso wanted the side vents. I guess youcould just say I wanted a car with thelatest specs. From 2200 up they werepretty much all the same. So I knew asmuch is that. And I also knew that Ididn’t want a black interior. I wantedsomething lighter because black getshot in the sun.SAAC: So you started working on get-ting your next Cobra?SCUDDER: I started pestering mydad in late 1976 because I knew I wasgoing to need a loan. I wrote him aneight-page prospectus on what I

thought Cobras were going to do in themarket place; I was convinced thatthey were going to increase in value. Iremember telling him that it wouldnot surprise me if within ten yearsthey would be worth $50,000. In fact,that happened a lot quicker than inten years.SAAC: At the time you wrote that, didyou have any intention of buying a carand later selling it if the prices esca-lated?SCUDDER: My idea, at the time, wasthat I wanted to have a Cobra to ownand keep and enjoy in perpetuity. Iwas basically saying, “Dad, I have somuch cash at the ready but these carsare getting so much more expensive soquickly that I worry that I’m going toget priced out of the market.” He readthe thing and he basically laughed. Hesaid, “If you’re that passionate aboutsomething I will certainly help you.Just make sure it’s a good example.” Ihad seen a dark green 427 Cobra atthe New Hope Auto Show. It took FirstPlace in its class and it suddenly cameup for sale. It was just an hour away. Iwas on it like a flash. In February of1977, I ended up paying the owner$24K to buy the car, CSX3227, whichturned out to be a 428 but that was noproblem.SAAC: Would you consider this a fairmarket price or something less?SCUDDER: As Geoff Howard wouldlater say, “You got the last good deal.”I was seeing similar cars advertised inthe $30K range. The seller of 3227thought he had a Daytona Coupe onthe line that he was going to buy. Hewanted cash on the barrelhead morethan anything else. I happened to callhim to ask him if he knew of any carsthat were for sale before his ad in Au-toweek even appeared. He said some-thing like, “Holy crap! This is amazing.I only sent the ad to Autoweek twodays ago and I’m already getting aphone call!” I told him that wasn’t ac-tually the case. “I took down yourname when I saw your car at the NewHope show last summer and I’m justcalling you to see if you know of anyCobras that are available.” He said,“Yeah – mine is!” And I said, “Whoa!That’s a lucky break!” And it was a

good deal.SAAC: In 1976 SAAC published aCobra Registry which was unveiled atthe first convention in Oakland. Yourname was listed in the credits.SCUDDER: I had contributed a num-ber of names and serial numbers tothe first Cobra registry, the small,white one published by Bill Kemper.In the 1976 book it was the same deal.I contributed all the names and serialnumbers I knew to that book and Billgraciously thanked me and everyoneelse who had helped him, in the open-ing pages. I know that we call it “BillKemper’s registry” but it was reallyRoyal Krieger who put that book to-gether. He had been collecting infor-mation on Cobras and gave all of it toBill who added it to his own informa-tion, collated it and assembled it. But


SAAC’s first Cobra registry, printed in1976, was preceeded by the smaller (TVGuide-sized) 1973 registry which only con-tained the serial numbers of Cobras whoseowners were known. The 1976 editionlisted all serial numbers, although manycars were still “owner unknown.” Scudderwas listed as a contributor but was not oneof the editors, even though he had providedall of his records. Within a year everyonelisted as an editor in the publication real-ized that maintaining the Cobra registrywould be never-ending and chose not tocontinue. That’s when Scudder was askedby SAAC to take over. He decided to makethe commitment and has done a masterfuljob ever since.

when it was time to publish it, Royalwas the one who spearheaded that. Ilater thanked him for having put thewhole thing together and he said,“Yeah, not many people know what Idid to make that book happen, but Iwas kind of the guy behind it.”SAAC: He was also able to use thenewly formed SAAC to finance it. Thatwas a big deal for the club. We printed1,000 copies and that was, to us at thetime, a huge number. In fact, we wereso excited about unveiling the book atSAAC-1 in Oakland that we had theprinter send 600 copies out there. Dur-ing the event we sold 90 copies, so itturned out that we were a tad opti-mistic.SCUDDER: The Cobra Club asked allof its members to please tell us allabout your Cobra. And if you know ofany other cars, tell us about them. Ihad a lot of information. All of the stuffI had collected since my college dayswas stored in a little file box. I sent itto Bill Kemper. Any time I saw aCobra I would write down the owner’sname and where he was from, just be-cause you never knew. One day, if yougot lucky enough that you could startlooking for a car, you could call thisguy up and ask, “Is your car for sale?”SAAC: Even if you didn’t have a serialnumber for that car?SCUDDER: Correct. If I saw a carsomewhere, whether it was at a showor more rarely, on the street, I’d try tocall them. Back then, nobody knewmuch; there was no real network oranything of that nature. If you saw aCobra you’d flash your lights and waveand pull over and talk. Before I owneda Cobra I would follow one if I saw iton the street. If, within five miles, theguy pulled in somewhere I’d stop andtalk with him and ask him questions.Do you know of any other Cobras? Doyou know of any for sale?SAAC: That’s how the informationnetwork actually began.SCUDDER: Absolutely. That’s howthis whole thing started. And onceeveryone began sending in their infor-mation and someone was there to col-lect it and put it together, suddenly wehad a fair number of serial numbers.SAAC: That’s the key. Someone col-

lecting it and everyone else knowingwho that someone is so they can sendthe stuff in. You can only collect somuch on your own.SCUDDER: Absolutely so. It sort oftakes off by itself.SAAC: Ok, where did that leave youwith cars?SCUDDER: In February of 1983 I de-cided it was time to spruce 3227 upsome and ended up sending it down toCobra Restorers in Marietta, Georgia.Long story short, they did the work, Iwasn’t happy with it, and instead of alaw suit we agreed to arbitration. Weboth chose Mike McCluskey as the ex-pert and it was his opinion that thework had not been done correctly.Cobra Restorers then refused to acceptMcCluskey’s judgement and aftersome back and forth, the car was sentback to Cobra Restorers to be repairedcorrectly. After that I decided to sellthe car because it was never going tobe the car that I wanted. That’s when,out of the blue, I heard that an S/Cwas for sale. That was Dan Turman’s3042, and he had to get out of the carquickly. This was in the fall of 1984.The first person who came up with$75K and put it on his desk would ownthe car. I was managing a condo-minium sales office at the time. I got aphone call that said the deal is on. “Ifyou have $75K on my desk this after-noon in New York City, the car isyours.” I literally closed down the salesoffice (against the owner’s desire) andraced into the city in my car and gavehim a check. And I owned the car. It’sa fun story and there were at least twoother people that I knew who werealso chasing the car. I was half expect-ing to see them in the hallway of theattorney’s office because we were allracing each other to get the car.SAAC: During all this time you wereofficially “the” registrar.SCUDDER: I guess that happenedaround 1978. When the 1976 registrycame out there was some discussion,that I was not aware of at the time,about some cars that Bill Kemper hadexcluded from that book. When peoplewould ask him about one of those cars,he said that information had not comefrom the Cobra Club or SAAC or other

owners. It came out of his own deal-ings with the owner as he was runninga shop. And some people were un-happy about that; they said you reallycan’t serve two masters here. You’re ei-ther the registrar and every car youknow about goes in the book or you’rea restoration shop and sales organiza-tion and can keep some names privateif you choose. I remember SAAC waslooking for a registrar and was check-ing with a number of people. I got acall asking me if I was interested. Isaid to let me think about it, and I did.I called back a day later and said Iwould be very interested in the posi-tion. Looking back on it, I think it hasbeen a wonderful experience and theopportunity to meet the some very in-teresting folks. I talk to people on thephone, if not daily, then two or threetimes a week. I exchange e-mails allthe time, photos and information arebeing sent back and forth all the time.It’s a great deal of fun.SAAC: Except when you get sued.SCUDDER: Yeah, that’s not so muchfun.SAAC: As the cars gained value theirindividual history became significian.Good history (low mileage, originalparts, etc.) added to their value and ac-cidents, repairs and other catastro-phes often diminished it. In caseswhere cars were separated into pieces,but both carrying the same serialnumber, there would be legal disagree-ments over which owner had the “orig-inal” car. When the registrar reviewedall of the “evidence” (in some cases hehad more than either owner) and at-tempted to issue an opinion, oneowner could always be counted on todisagree. He would often threaten tosue the registrar, as if that wouldchange the facts. These disputes didn’tget into court a lot, but even one isenough to dampen your enthusiasm.Especially when, as a registrar, you donot stand to gain or lose anything (ex-cept your legal bills). All you are tryingto do is reveal the facts and tell thetruth. SCUDDER: Fortunately, that doesn’thappen very often, but as the cars getincreasingly expensive the stakes areproportionally higher.


SAAC: When do you think peopleother than the original diehard own-ers and enthusiasts got involved withthese cars? Was that when the valuesbegan to take off?SCUDDER: I don’t know. I thinkthere have always been some kind ofsketchy people when you would go todifferent events; there were alwaysone or two people you would wonderabout. What their motivation was inowning the car, and whether they werereally passionate about owning it.

They seemed to always be looking foran angle of some type.SAAC: It seemed to have some corre-lation with the cars reaching some cer-tain rate of appreciation, more thansomeone could make in the stock mar-ket or with real estate, art or Persiancarpets. This seemed to attract a cer-tain type of person who was not reallya diehard enthusiast. When the valueof the car reached a certain point theywould sell the car and buy somethingelse; a Ferrari or a Porsche.

SCUDDER: I guess that is true.Maybe I was a little stupid, but I neverreally paid much attention to thatwhole situation. You knew the carswere going up in value. But then youhad 1989 when everything plateaued,and then the bottom fell out. SAAC: After that, into the mid-90s,prices started to move back up. That’swhen you saw the increased interestwhich came from a number of things.One of them was the availability of in-formation through the club andthrough the registry. Details and his-tory on Cobras were provable andthat’s when you started to see more ofthese cars starting to show up at auc-tions.SCUDDER: Well, there was a point –and I don’t know precisely what thatpoint was – but there was a point atwhich Cobras achieved a value thatmade them a legitimate automotivecollectible in the eyes of the people Iwould describe as “big players.” If youhad a collection of twenty or thirty ormore cars, you pretty much ought tohave a Cobra in the mix became theidea. When the big moneyed folksstarted collecting Cobras that’s whenit really got worse. Prices startedgoing out of sight.SAAC: You had to feel a little sorry forsome owners who couldn’t resist sell-ing their car because, suddenly, theywere worth so much more than theyhad paid for them. They represented ahouse or a college education for theirkids and it was kind of tough to justifykeeping a car when you could ex-change it for something like that.SCUDDER: Or it represented theability to enjoy your retirement. Iknow several people who have soldtheir cars because they were ready toretire and would rather have the cashin the bank so they knew where theystood, financially. And that’s terrific.SAAC: At this point, you don’t see toomany people in their 60s and 70s buy-ing these cars unless they alreadyhave a lot of money and a lot of cars.SCUDDER: They aren’t first-timebuyers, that’s for sure.SAAC: We deal with an increasingnumber of owners who are looking forwhat we call “an exit strategy.” They


Scudder had moved to the San Diego area and had CSX3042 at SAAC-27 at CaliforniaSpeedway. The car was a concours winner and this photograph was deemed “cover qual-ity” and appeared on issue #72

are not there yet, in selling their cars,but they are almost there and they arelooking at their options. The longerthey have had the car the more diffi-cult it is to sell it.SCUDDER: I am in fairly constantconversation with about four people,right now, on that very issue. They calland we talk and philosophize, andthey ask what do you think – are thecars going to go up or just holdingtheir value? I keep saying that mycrystal ball is no better than theirs. Idon’t know. I can’t tell anyone any-thing about what the market is goingto do but obviously it is doing wellright now.SAAC: We get the feeling that somepeople are sitting on the fence, holdingtheir breath and waiting to see if themarket is going to drop. Not like ananvil off a cliff, but they are watchingfor the beginnings of it. It’s like aschool of fish; when one turns they allturn. Nobody wants to be the first oneto sell their car if the prices keep goingup, but neither do they want to be thelast one when suddenly there arethree dozen cars on the market. It’s alla matter of timing.SCUDDER: I can remember talkingto a fellow about five years ago whocalled and he said, “I am thinking ofretiring and selling my Cobra and Igot an offer of X on it.” I said, “If that’sgoing to fund your retirement I sug-gest that you hang onto your car foranother six months because the priceson these cars are almost on a straightline going up. At every auction theywere going up another ten percent.”He decided to accept the offer and heregrets it to this day. He is very upsetabout it. If he would have hung ontothe car another two years he wouldhave doubled his money.SAAC: Hindsight is always a wonder-ful thing. But you do what you do andyou can’t undo it. And it isn’t very use-ful to follow the market after that. It’slike someone who buys something – itdoesn’t matter if it’s a car or a kitchenappliance or a television – they makethe purchase and then they keep shop-ping, looking to see if they could havepaid less. At that point it’s just notvery helpful.

SCUDDER: I have my own story likethat. We probably all do. Back in 2004I was told I had an aortic aneurismand had open heart surgery, and a me-chanical aortic valve was installed.You don’t know what the future holds.I had two kids in college and a guycalled out of the blue and said he wasin San Diego and wanted to see mycar. I said he was welcome to come andsee it, and he did. He called me abouta week later and said, “I’d like to offeryou “X” for that car.” I said it wasn’tfor sale. He said that if it ever was, hehad the cash and it was a very goodoffer. I started thinking about myhealth and the kids in college and Iasked myself what was more impor-tant than taking care of business andbeing a responsible dad. So I told himthat I would sell the car. In a few yearsit had doubled in price. And I lookedback and I said, “Gee...” but I made thedecision at the time and I’m ok with it.I took about half of the money and in-vested it in another car that I love andI’m as happy as can be. My old S/C wassort of a “Hey – look at me” car and Iknew that I would probably sell it at

some point. I reached that point whereI decided that I would really enjoysomething that is a little less flamboy-ant. I bought an AC289 and I’m ashappy as a clam about how it workedout. I have no complaints.SAAC: You said something about nothaving a crystal ball and not knowingwhere these prices are going. Do youfeel like just a spectator on the side-lines?SCUDDER: Not really. The cars arebona fide collectibles; really desirablecars. But I think that there is a certaingroup of people to whom these cars re-ally appeal. To whom they really aremillion-dollar-plus cars. I’m not sureas time goes by, if these cars are goingto be million-dollar-plus cars for latergenerations, in view of the fact thatyou can get cars that will outperformthem for a whole lot less, maybe thecars that these kids grew up with intheir youth. And they might be just asdesirable to them.SAAC: Have you ever heard the term“bedroom poster car”? It’s a car that ayoung kid would have on his wall ashe is growing up. And when he gets to


Ned Scudder’s current ride is COX6111, a coil spring chassis powered by a 289 engineoriginally built for sale in Europe. Having the car has freed Scudder from the concoursstraight jacket: it has aluminum Trigo wheels, an S/C fuel filler and a roll bar.

be 25 or 30, that is the car of hisdreams. And that’s what he will grav-itate towards. The car on the wall is asubliminal image.SCUDDER: I guess that’s my point.When I go to the SAAC convention, Isee a lot of the same faces that I’vebeen seeing for twenty or thirty yearsat these conventions.SAAC: The convention represents aconstant that flows through our partof the hobby. They are like family re-unions where you see each other everyyear or every few years.SCUDDER: We don’t tend to see thatmany kids. If you think back to the1970s, in 1977, for example, I was 28years old. An awful lot of club mem-bers were in their 20s, 30s, etc. Youdon’t see that same age group today.There are a few of them, sure. Thereare some kids with their graying dadsbut they are there because of theirgraying dads. The pool of potentialbuyers for these cars as million-dollar-plus artifacts may, at some point, startto shrink. And the younger, upcominggenerations may veer off to, I don’tknow, something from the 1980s or1990s; something that has been theobject of their lust on their bedroomwall.SAAC: If you look back at cars like theModel A Ford and 1955-56-57 Thun-derbirds, and look at what happenedto their values over a period of time, itmay be where the values of Cobrascould be headed. You don’t see verymany of these cars at car shows todaybecause not many people in their 40sor 50s are really interested in them.But the people who grew up with themor were too young to own one at thattime were excited to buy one as soonas they could afford one. These carswent up in value, but when these own-ers began aging out of the hobby andthe cars started to get sold off, therewasn’t a large pool of buyers willing topay what they had become worth, sotheir values dropped.SCUDDER: And the reason for thatis, let’s suppose a guy is out there look-ing for a car, and he says, “Let’s see, Ican buy this 1957 T-Bird for X or I canbuy this new Toyota Supra that isfaster and handles better for one half

that. I know the Supra better, theparts are available and it’s more mygeneration’s car.” There’s no questionwhich one he’s going to buy.SAAC: There is definitely somethingto that “my generation’s car” idea. Ifyou let someone who is 20 or 30 yearsold today drive a 1957 Chevy or anycar from that era they cannot believehow crude and unresponsive thosecars are compared to just about anycar built today. And they cannot seewhy there older people have so muchenthusiasm for them.SCUDDER: That’s correct. And thereis an interesting lesson there. But it isnot the same across the board. Thebrass cars, for example, reached apeak, they plateaued and then flat-tened. They have really dropped invalue. Except for a few iconic cars. It’sthe same thing with a handful of the1940s and 1950s sports cars. The realicons, the top of the heap, are stillbringing really good money. And I be-lieve that’s going to be the case withCobras. They are iconic and they werethe fastest car of the sixties. They willalways be a high water mark in theirown right, for various collectors, irre-spective of their age or generation.SAAC: They became the high watermark for performance cars because in1968 the government began clampingdown on manufacturers, mandatingsafety and emissions requirementsand insurance companies began rais-ing rates on them. Cars of the 1970swere not as fast and when the per-formance tide went out it left the Co-bras at the top. Until the Vipers wereproduced, some thirty years later, the427 Cobra was the fastest productioncar made. The Cobras became an icon,in part because of what they were andbecause of what they were comparedto. Their success was an unintendedconsequence of the restrictive require-ments after 1968.SCUDDER: Another aspect is thatCobras were produced in very limitednumbers in relation to so many of theother cars that are still being writtenabout today from the 1960s and 1970s.Be they considered musclecars orsports cars, they still command anawful lot of awe and interest.

SAAC: We can recall when the firstCobra replicas were made, in the early1980s, and original Cobra owners hadan immediate distaste for these cars.It’s taken a long time for them to re-ceive grudging acceptance. Probablybecause there are so darned many ofthem now, you cannot ignore them.SCUDDER: I don’t mind that they’reout there. I understand that there arepeople who simply say, “It doesn’t mat-ter to me whether it’s an original or acopy. I don’t have the money for anoriginal so give me something that Ican drive that lets me feel like I imag-ined it would after looking at theposter on my bedroom wall for somany years.” Where I really getfrosted is when you go to some kind ofa show and there’s a guy with a carthat was built two years ago and he ishappily calling it a 1965 Shelby Cobra427. I politely explain to him that it’sa lovely car and all the rest, but it ain’ta ‘65. And it ain’t a Shelby. And it re-ally ain’t a Cobra. It’s a replica andpeople really need to be told that it isa knock-off. It used to be that a lot ofthese cars were cobbled together fromparts off of all different kinds of cars.You’d look in the engine bay and seeunfinished fiberglass. I would hearother spectators say “Huh. I never re-alized Cobras were fiberglass. Ithought they were aluminum.” You’dsee crappy upholstery, horrible stitch-ing, vinyl and you’d see wires stickingout. I wish somebody could gathereveryone around and say, “Hey folks –this is not the level of quality that atrue Cobra has. A true Cobra is alloy,it’s leather, it’s neat, it’s tidy if it’s beenmaintained.” When I see these crap-wagons and their owners claimingthey are AC Shelby 427 Cobras, itturns my stomach.SAAC: One of the problems leading tosome of this lies in semantics. Themanufacturers certificate of origin is-sued for the CSX4000 cars by ShelbyAmerican describe them as “1965Cobra 427 S/Cs.” This was done onpurpose, to assist owners in register-ing their completed cars without hav-ing to comply with current federal orstate DMV regulations. The cars werereplicas of the 1965 Cobra 427 S/C.


Technically, there was never a 1966 or1967 Cobra 427 S/C. But it is easy toconfuse the year of manufacture withthe model. The problem we’ve had iswhen a club member requests a letterverifying the value of one of these cars,we ask for the year of manufacture be-cause the insurance carrier needs toknow this. The owner will declare thattheir car is a 1965 model, citing theMSO as proof. When you squeeze themhard enough they will admit that theircar is not fifty years old; it was manu-factured in 2004 (or whatever year itwas built). After a while these argu-ments just wear you out.SCUDDER: I don’t deal with them.I’m happy to direct them to KevinRogers, the CSX4000 registrar. Evenso, it is incredibly frustrating. You seeowners on the forum with their ‘4000ssaying, “This is a legitimate 1965Cobra 427 S/C and it’s no differentthan yours.” Well, everybody knowsthat’s bullspit.SAAC: Another aspect of replicas isthat so many of them have been made.There have probably been 1,500CSX4000s, or more, because they arestill making them.SCUDDER: If you count up the num-ber of manufacturers other thanShelby over the last twenty years thathave been making Cobra replicas,whether it is here, England, SouthAfrica, Australia or Europe, I bet thereare (or have been) fifty different com-panies that have been producingCobra replicas and everybody whoowns one wants to call their car a1960-something Shelby AC Cobra.Somewhere the term replica, clone, re-production, tribute or whatever youwant to call it gets totally lost in thetranslation and if you even suggest it,they look at you in horror, It’s like,“Who the hell do you think you are?”SAAC: At car shows, it seems likereplica owners always want to parknext an original Cobra, hoping thatwhatever makes the original so specialmay rub off on their car. SCUDDER: There is a website calledClubCobra, which is a replica-orientedgroup, and there have been numerousthreads – including one that is proba-bly twenty pages long now – that tries

to answer the question, “How do youdeal with the question of, ‘Is that areal Cobra’?” Reasonable people chimein and they say that what the personis asking is, is that a 1960s-built car?Just say no, this is a car that was builtthereafter and it uses all of the samestuff. You could argue that the technol-ogy is even better. But most of thesepeople refuse. They say, “I wanted aCobra, I built a Cobra or I bought one;I’m not telling anyone anything. As faras I’m concerned, yes, it’s a real 1960sCobra.”SAAC: It’s impossible for us to changeanybody’s mind at this point. Replicashave been around too long. They havebeen accepted. There are probably10,000 Cobra-like cars out there.SCUDDER: Maybe more. And theycontinue to be built every day.SAAC: Obviously some of them arebetter than others. Kirkhams areevery bit as good as the originals.SCUDDER: Kirkhams are exquisite.SAAC: When Shelby American getsthe right parts together they can as-semble a decent 4000 car.SCUDDER: They sure can.SAAC: It’s gotten to the point now, inthe magazine, where I won’t put a cap-tion under a picture unless I actually

know who the owner of the car is be-cause it would be embarrassing to sayit was original car and later discoverit was a replica.SCUDDER: Exactly, I understand.SAAC: These are the times we live in.We’re lucky we didn’t just get to theparty yesterday. We’ve been around forquite a while. It’s been like a ride on areally long roller coaster.SCUDDER: Very true. And it’s been awonderful ride. I’m still enjoying itafter all these years.SAAC: Where do you see the Cobraphenomena headed in the future? Doyou see it continuing from where it isnow just continuing out as far as wecan imagine?SCUDDER: I wish I knew. I don’t re-ally know. I plan to hang onto myCobra until feel that my driving skillsare slipping and I really can’t properlydrive the car anymore. At which pointif the kids don’t want it, it will go onthe block. There is a time to say good-bye to your car and that doesn’t haveto diminish your enjoyment of the carsin general.SAAC:Without trying to pump smokeup your tailpipe, we have to say thatthe original Cobra marque is fortunateto have you as its guardian angel.


After all these years of tracking Cobras and their owners, Ned Scudder still enjoys theprimary purpose of owning a Cobra: driving it. He can almost always be found on thoseonce-yearly Cobra 1000-mile tours. He’s pictured here with his wife of 37 years, Cree.

ned scudder is the cobra registrar. how did that happen?ned scudder is the cobra registrar. how did...

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