Given that I already had a donor car (a 1979 Jaguar XJ12 5.3 Automatic) I was basically presented with three options for kits.

The first (and would have been my choice had funds allowed) was the Dax Tojeiro. I spoke to Brian Johns at the Donnington Kit Car Show in 1999 and was very impressed. It truely is the Rolls Royce of the Cobra fraternity.

The second choice was the Cobretti Viper. I went to see Cobretti at the back-end of 1999 and had a chat with Robert Busbridge. Everything seemed okay and the kit looked fairly good.

The final choice (which is the one I went for) was the Classic Replicas Viper. I went to see Ken Cooks demo car down in Bournemouth and was suprised to see that it was more or less exactly the same as the Cobretti Viper (strange huh! - see note below) but was slightly less expensive.

I did have a look at the Pilgrim Sumo. I spoke with a couple of chaps down at Pilgrim about whether I would be able to shoe-horn the Jag V12 into the space that the Sumo provided. They were quite helpful but were (understandably) reluctant to say that it would definately fit. I also tried a couple of other makers but they flat out refused (some quite offensive of the fact that I wanted to put something other than a V8 into a Cobra).

One other thing I would like to mention at this point is something that was mentioned in the Classic Replicas literature about the Viper. According to Classic Replicas, Cobretti used to be agents for them until 1992 at which point they copied the kit and also called it the Viper. This is what probably convinced me to give Classic Replicas a go.

The Chassis

Now this I am quite impressed with. I can't say for sure that it's the strongest, lightest chassis in the world but it seems to be alot stronger (sturdier) than most and to me it's things like this that make me feel safe in a car.