American Cobra in he UK

[Graham RCAF]

I'm a Canadian that is moving to the UK this summer. I'm debating whether or not to bring my 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 Factory Five Racing (FFR) Roadster. It has less than 1500 miles since the kit was completed. Specs are as follows:
FORD 302 HO (300+ HP)
Edelbrock Aluminum Victor Jr. Intake
Holley 650 4 barrel carb
Tremec T-5 5 speed manual transmission
Ford 8.8" rear end
High performance coil over shocks

It will be made road worthy to the UK standards upon my arrival with the intentions to sell after 2 years of touring the UK country side.

Any comments on how well this car would be recieved and/or is it worth the effort to ship? i.e. Will I be able to sell it in th UK?

Graham

[mylesdw]

The car looks nice and it is a nice middle-of-the-road spec so I can't imagine it would be too difficult to sell. FFR is unusual but not unheard of in the UK. Being LHD will lower the value slightly.

I would investigate very carefully what the car would be treated as when it arrives in the UK. You may call it a 1965 car but we all know it isn't and if the 'date of first registration' on the papers shows that it is a 2004 car then they may apply all the rules for that year and that may be troublesome. Worse still, if the authorities decided that it needed to pass the UK SVA test before registering it, that could be expensive and difficult. I brought a car from California to the UK a few years ago and I seem to remember that it being more than 15 years old helped a lot, so the age is important.

[Colin GD427]

Hi Graham
One good reason to ship and do some of your touring in the Cobra is I live In Waddington, Lincoln UK.

Will you be up at the camp with the Awax`s?

I beleive the SVA which is meantioned above would not be the same as you would have to to pass with a imported car and not a new/kitcar vehicle. I SVA ed a Pajero , which I imported last year and they are alot simplar, ie Rear fog light fitted, miles not KM. It only took about an hour to do.
If you have all your paperwork you should not have a problem as registing here in the UK they WILL go off the paperwork for the details, if its all documented there on it. Good look, keep us posted.

Looks a very NICE car.
Regards
Colin

[Grease Monkey]

Originally Posted by Graham RCAF

Will I be able to sell it in th UK?
Graham

You can sell ANYTHING, the question is would you get as much as you were expecting? Anyone care to hazard a guess at what an unseen left hooker would go for? £15 - £20k??

Best bet might be to keep an eye on ebay, sovereign and hallmark and see what they're selling FFR kits at.

[adricar2]

i am building an american cobra kit at present whih is a hi-tech. i have it as a left hand drive at the moment but was contenplating changing it to right hand drive, i would be interested in what the difference in price would be if it was sold as a left hand drive to a right hand drive car?
i am working closely with the manufacturer who has / was involved with the manufacture of these kits and i will be looking at importing these .

[wilf]

Can't be definitive, but there are enough RHD cars for sale here to severely devalue a LHD vehicle IMHO.

Unless it could be used in Germany? And I guess that depends on how it is registered/SVAd here.