There are a few days now and then when I don't think about how much longer it's going to be until I can get started on building my new car. I have access to the assembly guide now, though, so I figured maybe I ought to start reading it.
As I may have mentioned a time or two (or two dozen) before, there are a lot of similarities between the building of my Van's RV-12 and the building of this car. This is also the case with the assembly guide. Well, there are similarities in the early chapters in the early chapters, at least.
Chapter 1 of the Cobra guide is titled General Information and the first few (well, dozen) paragraphs of said guide are a Foreword written by the President of the company, David Smith. It begins on a very personal level:
If you are reading this, you are embarking on a mission to build your own car, or at least considering doing so. I wanted to share with you some of my experiences and lessons learned while working with literally thousands of people who have completed this undertaking with us. The lessons learned here are important and will hopefully help with your decisions as well as with the project and the completed car.
"If" I read it?
Well... to be fair, I'm not sure if I would have read this part or not if I actually had the kit on hand. The temptation to jump right into the build would be immense. That's not entirely true, though - I would definitely take the time needed to fully inventory the contents of the kit and develop a means of getting hundreds of parts put on shelves and some kind of way to help me find the parts I need when I need them. I did this with the airplane as well, but I was not always successful in finding specific parts now and then.
It will be more difficult this time around because I will not be building in my own shop. Brother Grant will have a great deal to say on where parts will be stored in his shop. That is, in fact, very beneficial to me because he is far more organized than I am. I'm more the affable goof kinda guy.
Next:
First of all, the idea of building your own car is NOT for everyone. It is a serious endeavor that should be undertaken with care and consideration. The desire to build your own custom car goes way back. It is part of our uniquely American car-centric culture, and those who build their own cars are at the very center of this. Since the earliest days of Hot Rodding, literally tens of thousands of people have built their own cars. Even more have done restorations and major customizations to existing cars.
Again, the first sentence is obviously true, but still worth saying. Paraphrased: "Are you sure you can do this? Because we know for a fact that many before you have failed."
It is indeed a serious endeavor, but not nearly as serious as building and actually flying an airplane. It is unlikely that a mistake made in building a car would have more consequence than getting stuck on the side of the road somewhere. The airplane on the other hand... well, you can imagine how much more fraught it would be to lose the engine (or have a part of the airframe to fall off) in an airplane. That said, it will certainly be beneficial to treat this build with the same level of gravitas that I applied to the airplane build.
So far I like the cut of this guy's jib.
Say, that previous sentence.... I think once I'm done with the Cobra, I ought to build a sailboat!
As fun as this project is, a person should be candid about their abilities turning a wrench. This is not a place for novices. That is even truer in racing, where danger and risk are part of the very definition of always trying to go faster. The late Carroll Smith wrote something I really loved that speaks to this point. “There is no magic! The one basic truth of successful racecar preparation bears repeating. There is no magic. There is only logic, common sense, forethought, vast amounts of hard work, and a fanatic dedication to the task at hand”. Carroll Smith “Prepare to Win”
The first two sentences are applicable to my situation, but the racing stuff is not. The closest parallel to racing in my world is taking the empty left lane and racing the first car in the right lane so I can get on the highway on-ramp before him/her. My current ride is actually pretty good at that. 99% of people don't even bother to try, so as far as "racing" goes, lane-racing is not exactly pulse-pounding. Lucky for me that's not why I want to build the Cobra - I want to build the Cobra because I want to build it.
After being honest about the skills, responsibility, and dedication required to build a car, I feel the need to talk about the PROCESS of building a car in an equally candid manner. The process of building a car is a lot like the process of having kids. As a matter of fact, it’s absolutely the best analogy I can find (apologies in advance to all of you without kids, try and bear with me). Both things are easy to get started. With a car project you order a manual, talk to car guys, get all excited over glossy photos and perhaps order a kit from us. With the whole pregnancy thing, well for most folks that’s even easier to get started…
When it comes to the car project, once the kit arrives and the process begins it is much the same as pregnancy. Frankly the degree to which a person breezes thru the project or languishes is commonly a factor of skill, but still, building a car for anyone is a tough job and there are inevitably issues. How many times have you gotten the wrong part at NAPA, gotten home to realize the alternator has a six ribbed pulley not five…? You will meet challenges building this car and you will be frustrated at times. Thankfully there are internet discussion forums where you can vent your frustrations and complain about the idiots who designed this kit. We smile when reading these posts because we know that while the pregnant woman complains, the mother loves her children in an unreasonable and perhaps even undeserved way!
This rings true, although I have never personally been pregnant. That said, I have birthed a kit airplane, so I found myself nodding my head in agreement when I read the part about skill playing a large role in the overall project. I also know that there are two personality traits that can trump skill when it comes to successfully completing a lengthy, complex job: patience and tenacity. I speak to that at length in the second of the two books I have written: Schmetterling Aviation
This too comports with my personal experiences:
There will be highs and there will be lows, but in the end, there are few parents who don’t treasure their children more than life itself, and there are few Factory Five owners whose lives remain unchanged by the experience and the artwork they have crafted.
Well.... the building of the airplane may have inured me to some degree, but that was a decade ago. I have more than likely suppressed the memory of the hard and frustrating days. I never came close to quitting, but there were definitely days when I deemed it best to just stay home. It took me awhile to learn that if I wasn't in the mood to work on the plane, forcing myself to do it often ended in a poor result.
Following that pep talk (/sarcasm) there is a lengthy list of required tools. I'm not even looking at that. If there is a tool on the list that Grant doesn't already have, I would be shocked.
This brings us to Chapter 2 of the manual: Disassembly of the Kit.
To which I say, "Whut?" I thought this was the Assembly Guide. What's all of this about disassembly??
Stay tuned to find out!
