GT40 public attention

For the long term gt40 owners, do you find the attention gets a little too tiresome at times? It would be cool initially, but just wondering about long term. And if you actually get crowds forming.

I've noticed just how much attention my dad gets with his cobra. He hasn't mentioned it but he also hasn't drove it all that much.
 
It is nice for me , it's about people who love cars . My wife can't believe it when people slow down or speed up to see the car , most time you can't see them do it because the car is so low. Parking lots people come talk or take pics. Never bugs me. I drive a H 1 hummer as my day car I have a done up 69 mustang. My wife drove an Audi RS6. She would some times say people walk up and ask her questions, she would just laugh and say I don't know my husband bought it.
 
It's a car show just getting gas! The best part about going to events is talking to the people. Lots of them remember the era but forget the facts, or "is it a kit car?" that gets everything going. Letting the little kids or teen-agers sit in it goes over well. ......forever Ford!
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
If the first question is "Is that a kit car?" I get more focused on fueling the car up than entertaining more questions. My experience has been most normal people will give you a thumbs up or a nod. The people that want to have a full on discussion are generally more on the odd end of the spectrum.
 
The most memorable question I got this weekend was "My boyfriend used to have a Trans Am. Is it a Trans Am?"

The three most common comments I usually get are:

  • Is it a kit?
  • When I was a boy, I built one of these as a kit.
  • Which year is it?
 
Agree with anyoing question of: is it a kit car ....?
Otherwise everyone had one as a little dinky toy when they were young.
Whilst driving it very often happens that someone takes a flash picture and I believe it is a speed flash ...
But everybody has a smily face of joy when looking at the car.
 

Pat

Supporter
When people come around and become bothersome I smile and tell them I'm wearing new socks. After I show them my socks, I ask them about their socks. I ask them if they like socks and what kind of socks they have. When the gas pump prints my receipt I jump up and down clapping and scream "I Won! I Won! Third time this week!" Then repeat the following conversation a dozen times: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now. "
Follow that by inviting everyone to join you in a stirring rendition of the 99 bottles of beer song.

By then the crowd pretty much disburses.

If that doesn't work try any one of the following:

Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of "Beeeep Bip Bip Beeeep Bip.

Sing the Batman theme incessantly.

Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a "croaking" noise.

Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute the street around your car.

Wear your trousers backwards.
 

Keith

Moderator
That's pretty scary Pat. Your description fits one forum member here particularly well but I'm not sure he's even aware that there's anything odd about it... :lipsrsealed:
 

Dave Bilyk

Dave Bilyk
Supporter
Darin, the attention only gets too much when I am in a hurry or it's someone who's drunk. Usually, those who want to talk have some knowledge or have something meaningful to say.
People slowing down alongside to look or have passengers take a picture can be tiresome or even a bit dangerous depending on other traffic.
The greatest danger comes from the effect on other drivers focus and attention.
An incident occurred once when I stopped in a layby to check something, ahead was a right turn (call it left for LHD countries). As I was looking under the rear clip, there was an accident, a van going straight on clipped the back of the car turning right. There was no screech of brakes, the van driver clearly had not seen the car turning right in front of him and only slammed his brakes on after the accident and stopped well further on. Luckily no one was hurt but the rear of the car was in a mess and small pieces of plastic rained down from the sky. I think the van was doing 50mph or so. I'm sure the driver hadn't seen the car turning ahead because he had been distracted by my car.
That made me a bit more cautious about where I stop the car.

DaveB
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
That made me a bit more cautious about where I stop the car.

Sometimes one has no choice about where/how he parks his car, though!

E.g.: Once when I was refueling my Ford GT, a driver who was 'circling' the gas pump islands looking at the car darn near rear ended another car being driven by someone who was also circling the 'pumps doing the same thing. Neither saw the other. I just happened to look up in time to whistle and point a warning to both of 'em. As Maxwell Smart would say, "they came this close..."

I couldn't say how many times drivers came close to rear ending another car or driving into a ditch/onto a sidewalk while looking over their shoulder as the GT went by...but, it was a bunch.

Judging from the posts above, MHNOCO's contention that there is no diff between a Ford GT and a GT40 in the 'attention department' is 100% accurate IMHO.
 

Mike Pass

Supporter
For the long term gt40 owners, do you find the attention gets a little too tiresome at times?

Yes. Just look at this pic. Another bunch of attractive young women messing about with my car and getting in my way. I get this all the time. What a pain.

Cheers
Mike
 

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As a former Superformance Cobra owner, and new owner of a Superformance GT40, I can attest to a unbelievable amount of attention the GT40 gets compared to the Cobra. I have yet to be out in my GT40 and not had multiple people pointing cell phones to take photos and videos. It's just nutty crazy. People hanging back in your blind spot to stare at and listen to the car. The Cobra had more of a kit-car-boy-racer kind of aurora and attracted that kind of attention. The Cobra shape is generally familiar to even the causal car enthusiast. They generally know what it is when they see it.

The GT40 gets ultra exotic super car kind of attention. It's a whole different thing. Everyone thinks the Cobra is a kit car rebodied Mustang. Yep, looks cool, but it's really nothing underneath. (Not the case with a Superformance and many other fine Cobras, but that is what people are generally thinking when they gawk at a Cobra). The GT40 carries a whole different mystique. Most think it's some sort of Ferrari (mine's red). When they realize it's not, they may not think it's an original GT40, but they know it's a crazy exotic build of some sort.

The exhaust note difference between the Cobra and GT40 is very illustrative of what people are thinking when they see/hear them. A Cobra sounds like a lumpy V8 almost Harley sounding thing - a wonderful sound. But, it sounds like every other stroked or big block V8. A sound familiar to them and quickly associated with common muscle cars and hopped up Mustangs. The GT40 sound is something else entirely. It has an incredible exotic urgency to it. It simply sounds very different from what the average car guy has heard before. No one will mistake that sound for a rebodied kit car or hopped up Mustang. It is a sound of pure urgent barely restrained thoroughbred power - and that's the sound out of a relatively un-exotic Roush 427IR with eight stack injection. Oh, and those eight individual stacks shining under the rear window...that does not at all look kit-car.

Will I get sick of the attention? Dunno. But I am glad there are fixed windows in the car and I don't have to enter into a long conversation at every frikkin' stop sign :)

- Jeff
 
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Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Last night (nice summer evening) I drove my Cobra downtown and parked it on West Street in Annapolis. (car is polished aluminum, so it DOES get a fair amount of eyeballs on it)

I didn't mind the folks asking me questions about it, what it is, etc. I DID mind all the drunks coming up and "leaning in" and telling me how to drive it, or asking what it cost, etc. But I can always drive away, which I did.

It's kind of like having a beautiful girlfriend or wife. Everyone wants to look, but at the end of the evening, she goes home with me.
 
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