I bought one of my childhood dream cars – a 1996 Mystic Cobra – on December 29, 2011, and I’ve had it ever since. I decided that this year would be the year I’d finally make it into the car I've always wanted it to be. Here’s how the car sits now:
I started a thread about it years back, but the images are long gone, so I’ll paraphrase the information here.
It's Mystic Cobra #683, originally exported to Canada and owned by the president of the Royal Bank of Canada before coming over the border sometime in the year 2000. The Mystic Cobra was my dream car when I was 8, and the only one I'd ever seen in person lived a few streets away from me. I would occasionally see it in the driveway on summer days getting washed. When I was 22 years old, I was diagnosed with a heart condition called SVT, short for supraventricular tachycardia. One day, on my way to see my doctor, I saw this car for sale at a dealership that belonged to a family friend. Unfortunately, they were on vacation, but the day they returned, I came back, test drove the car, and made an offer. It was the week before New Year's, and there were several inches of snow on the ground. After purchasing the car, a friend and I drove down to Summit Racing in Tallmadge in a snowstorm. Later that night, going over the stack of documentation about the car's history, I realized that my Mystic Cobra was the same one I'd seen as a child.
The car has stayed mostly stock so far, but I’ve been collecting parts over the years as well. The only mods on the car presently are a Flowmaster American Thunder cat-back exhaust, a Steeda Tri-Ax shifter, Steeda underdrive pulleys, and a Steeda four-point strut brace (which came as a package deal with some other parts I ordered from them and simply replaced the original).
I’ve got a healthy stash of parts in the basement, including Brembo four-piston front brake calipers, some beefier rear calipers, a pair of 18x9” FR500 wheels (the rears are on order), subframe connectors, lowering springs, camber plates, a bump steer kit, upgraded ball joints, a coil on plug conversion, and some other assorted restoration trim parts.
The first project is fixing my gauge cluster, then determining why my speedometer has never worked properly. I’ll also be sending some parts off for powdercoating soon, including my brake calipers, my valve covers, my underdrive pulleys, and a few assorted pieces of trim. Here’s the full list of goals I have in mind for 2021:
I started a thread about it years back, but the images are long gone, so I’ll paraphrase the information here.
It's Mystic Cobra #683, originally exported to Canada and owned by the president of the Royal Bank of Canada before coming over the border sometime in the year 2000. The Mystic Cobra was my dream car when I was 8, and the only one I'd ever seen in person lived a few streets away from me. I would occasionally see it in the driveway on summer days getting washed. When I was 22 years old, I was diagnosed with a heart condition called SVT, short for supraventricular tachycardia. One day, on my way to see my doctor, I saw this car for sale at a dealership that belonged to a family friend. Unfortunately, they were on vacation, but the day they returned, I came back, test drove the car, and made an offer. It was the week before New Year's, and there were several inches of snow on the ground. After purchasing the car, a friend and I drove down to Summit Racing in Tallmadge in a snowstorm. Later that night, going over the stack of documentation about the car's history, I realized that my Mystic Cobra was the same one I'd seen as a child.
The car has stayed mostly stock so far, but I’ve been collecting parts over the years as well. The only mods on the car presently are a Flowmaster American Thunder cat-back exhaust, a Steeda Tri-Ax shifter, Steeda underdrive pulleys, and a Steeda four-point strut brace (which came as a package deal with some other parts I ordered from them and simply replaced the original).
I’ve got a healthy stash of parts in the basement, including Brembo four-piston front brake calipers, some beefier rear calipers, a pair of 18x9” FR500 wheels (the rears are on order), subframe connectors, lowering springs, camber plates, a bump steer kit, upgraded ball joints, a coil on plug conversion, and some other assorted restoration trim parts.
The first project is fixing my gauge cluster, then determining why my speedometer has never worked properly. I’ll also be sending some parts off for powdercoating soon, including my brake calipers, my valve covers, my underdrive pulleys, and a few assorted pieces of trim. Here’s the full list of goals I have in mind for 2021:
- Fix my gauge cluster/speedometer issue
- Basic service & engine bay detail
- Coil-on-plug conversion
- 4.56 gear install
- New wheels & tires
- Big brake upgrade
- Suspension upgrades
- Install subframe connectors & reinforce torque boxes
- Restore and upgrade the interior
- Longtube headers & H-pipe
- Tubular K-member
- IMRC deletes
- Comp Cams XE262AH cams
- Fix the paint
