The decision process – conception!
It all started while on a skiing holiday in Bulgaria. After an energetic day on the slopes the first thing you have to do when you return to the hotel is to have a large beer! This became the daily routine (tough life!), I found myself surfing the fifty-seven channels for something to watch while chilling out. The Discovery Channel was one of only two English choices, however this wasn’t all bad as I discovered the ‘Car is Born’ program for the first time. Mark Evans was demonstrating how to fix the grills on the front of his Pilgrim Sumo. Each night became the same ritual; beer while watching Mark progressing with the finishing touches on his car, through to the SVA test and then on to the race circuit.
The end...
Or so I thought. Well on returning to the UK, I was still thinking about the program (a lot) and how exiting it would be to build my own car. So, I went straight to Amazon and ordered the ‘Car is Born’ DVD and also signed up to the Cobra Club forum www.cobraclub.com. While I was waiting for the DVD to be delivered I was busily googling all I could find out about building your own Cobra replica car. I came across Tony Breski’s diary of his build and was drawn in by the whole story, warts and all. At the same time I was reading Paul’s Sumo build www.sumobuild.co.uk and my initial excitement and enthusiasm gradually turned to fear and trepidation, would it really be possible to take on a project as complex as this with little or no mechanical knowledge? Any way, as I was contemplating this, the DVD arrived. I couldn’t wait to sit down and watch the whole series and try and decide whether this really was possible. Or, whether I was dreaming and going to set myself up to fail, ending up with a severely weakened bank balance and a small ad in the trades.
I finally figured after watching the whole series again and spending countless hours researching the internet, what the heck, I was up for the challenge! That finally decided, I immediately faced my first dilemma.... which Cobra kit car should I actually build?
So which kit car?
The question of which Cobra kit is a very common one and has many correct answers depending on your budget, intended use, how much work you want to do and how much support you need throughout the build etc. If it's your first kit car, build support from the kit company is very important, as is the ease of build of the kit.
If it is authenticity you are looking for, then you should take a look at either Kirkham, Hawk or Crendon although they will be more expensive. DAX, AK and Pilgrim are all considered to be reasonably straight forward to build. Pilgrim may appear to be a little cheaper than DAX or AK, however, you should remember that only a small proportion of the total cost is the chassis & body.
Nearly all the other components and brightwork etc. are the same whichever kit you choose and the cost of these parts is largely driven by what specification you choose in your build.
To illustrate the point, you could build your car with the original donor engine or you could spend thousands on a brand new top spec high powered V8. When it comes to real cost, it is also worth comparing the likely resale value, kit cars generally suffer far less depreciation than other cars and both AK and DAX builds appear to hold their value comparatively well.
I decided to take a closer look at Dax, Pilgrim and AK and visited the factories of all three to compare.
