(rock music) - [Host] We're at the home of Lynn Park, whose a friend of mine, and he's got at least a
barn find Cobra or two, and I can't say that I
found them, Lynn found them, and so we're gonna take a look and he's got stories to tell about each one, so really amazing to be
able to find a 289 Cobra in this day and age that people
won't have just neglected and ignored them so let's
go inside and take a look. (heavy rock music) Wow, so I haven't seen this yet, wow! - [Lynn] There is the Dirt Bag himself. (laughter) - [Host] This is authentic right here. - That's Dirt bag just as it was found. That car sat in a fellow's
back yard for 20 years, and I've had it the last 22 years. Anyway, one of the
Offenhauser guys bought it, he drove it until 1974 or five, and something quit and
he doesn't remember what, parked it in a backyard
under a blue tarp and it sat. Everybody knew it was there,
people tried to buy it. But the wife was just cranky, she said "No way, get outta here." A friend of ours went over there with a suitcase full of
cash and tried to buy it, and she said "I'm not
impressed with your money, get outta here." - [Host] Wow.
- Yeah. - [Host] How far away from here? - Twenty miles.
- Man! Had you ever seen the car? - [Lynn] No! I'd seen the blue tarp, because it was outside the whole time. - [Host] Now, it got rained on? - [Lynn] That's why the paint's so bad, because you know, the
blue tarp it would sweat, and then dry out, sweat, and dry out. - [Host] Is that an original color? - [Lynn] No, it was red, and
he had Shelby paint it for him when he bought it.
- [Host] Mhmm. So how did you luck into buying it? - Don Lee actually smooth
talked the lady into selling it! He loaded it up on his trailer
and brought it over here and said, "Lynn, look what I got! Let's make a race car out of it!" I said, "Don, that's too much work." And this is before a barn find was in, I mean, at that point
it's just a used up Cobra. So he said, "I wanna make a
race car." I said, "No way!" I said, "Let's find a race car, it'll be cheaper in the long run." (murmurs agreement) So we found one, he needed a lot of parts for that car that I happened to have, so I said "Okay, I got all these parts," he said "Okay let's make a deal." So we traded a bunch of parts, and I gave him some
money and I got the car. But at that point I was
gonna restore the car. No one wanted a ratty car like this. - Yeah. - Carol Shelby saw it, and said "Lynn!" We were at one of the Cobra
days at the Peters Museum, and he said "Look at all these shiny cars. No one's looking at them, they're all over here
looking at this thing!" He said, "You ought to
leave this thing alone!" - [Host] Isn't that something? - And I said, "You know what, if it's good enough for Shelby,
it's good enough for me!" - [Host] What condition was it like, like the interior of the
seats, what were they like? - [Lynn] I don't tell
very many people this, but those aren't the seats
that came in the car, they were gone.
- [Host] Yeah. - The mice had eaten them up, so I had another pair of
old seats that I put in. But the dash is the same, the
steering wheel is the same. - [Host] Carpeting? - Carpeting is the same. - Tunnel cover? - Tunnel cover, I can't
remember if it was on the, I think it was though, because the paint under here
is all cracked and horrible. - [Host] Yeah! Now the
steering wheel is the same? - Yeah, I had to do a lot of work to it. - [Host] I bet. - [Lynn] Because it had de-laminated, so I got a lot of time
with glue and clamps. - So you've had this car 20...? - Since 1995. - And it was sitting outside for 20...? - 20 years, 20 or 21, nobody's real sure. - Did they buy it new,
the Offenhauser family? - Yeah.
- They bought it new! So you're the second owner? - They bought it new, and
the worst part of that, he doesn't remember what didn't work! He said, "We parked it for some reason!" - And the value of the car,
did they have a garage, could they put it in a garage? - They would have, but it would've meant that their '68 Chevy had to sit outside. - Geez, man. Does it have
the original motor in it? - Oh yeah, I have never taken
the original motor apart! - Can you show it to us? - I cranked it over to
see if it would turn over, by hand and it did, I said,
"Okay, so nothing's broken." I put a carburetor on it. I put a water pump and a fuel pump. - [Host] How many miles were on it? - I think 30,000. - [Host] When you got it? No kidding! - Which is a lot! For a car that's five
years old essentially. - [Host] Yeah, yeah, yeah. 38,000 now! - It smoked like the devil, but Marvel Mystery Oil to the rescue! Put that in the crank case, and it smoked less and less and less, and now it doesn't smoke at
all unless you let it sit 30 or 40 minutes and start
it, you'll get a little puff, but it needs to smoke, it's Dirt Bag! (laughter) - [Host] And so, that's
the other barn find? Or do you have another barn find? - [Lynn] The orange one. - [Host] The orange one? Ah okay, that's a race car. [Lynn] That is a race
car with a SCCA racer so it's not a pro racer that's all pretty, it's a weekend warrior that got changed with the rules every year, you can see remnants of an old hood scoop when the hood scoop was
legal for B production. Then all of a sudden it
wasn't so they welded it up, the flares kept getting bigger. - [Host] And so, where
did you find this car? - [Lynn] This car was in Sacramento, a little town outside of Sacramento. But the last time I really saw it before I was able to buy it, Gordon Gimbel's wife died and
there was a funeral up there, I think that was 2003 or so, and I went over and talked to him again, got him a bunch of parts, he was really enthusiastic at that point about making it run again. So I got him all the suspension pieces he'd need to put it back together. Eight years later, when
I went and bought it, all the parts were
laying there not touched. - I'm looking at how the stones beat the inside of the fenders here. - [Lynn] Yeah.
- You gotta check this out. - This is a car that got a lot of races. - [Host] This is aluminum body, so when stones get
chipped up from the tires, sticky race tires might pick up stones. Look, it's like an acne finish, geez. Do you still race this? - [Lynn] Yes, yeah.
- [Host] Wow. - [Lynn] And so I put
the engine back together with older parts to kind
of look like it was then. Then best part about this,
the motor was not in the car. So I said to Gary, I said "What are we gonna do for a motor?" He said, "We'll just go pick
it up at the machine shop." I go "How long has it
been at the machine shop?" "Oh, 40 years."
- [Host] Oh geez! - It was still there!
- [Host] Really? - Yeah.
- [Host] Man! So it runs well? - [Lynn] It runs perfectly. - [Host] It races well? - [Lynn] Yeah, it really does, this car is not the most
powerful motor I've got, but because of the roll cage, and all the stiffness that it provides, the car handles better than any of them. But it is just so, everybody said, "Well then you've gotta restore it, you gotta at least get rid of the cage!" I said, "No, this shows
what a lot of Cobras were." They weren't the pretty boy racers, they were just old race cars
that got used every weekend. - [Host] So tell me, here
are two Cobras you found, how many barn find Cobras are
left out there, do you figure? Either you know about or you suspect? - I don't know of any for sure, everybody says "Oh I think I there's one." A buddy of mine took to me one and yeah, from the street in the
guy's garage down there, it looked like a Cobra but
no it was an old Mercedes, but the grill was gone and
it kinda had the right shape, but (clears throat) it wasn't. I don't know if there's very many left, I don't know, there's
bound to be a couple. - So now if you want one,
you have to build one. You might as well give
us a tour of the one. (laughter)
- Yeah! - You don't mind people knowing that it's? - No, no, I don't want people to think that I'm trying to fool them. - Alright, so Lynn just said
that there's probably not, maybe one maybe none,
barn find Cobras left. Believe it or not, this
is a brand new Cobra. This is a brand new body, a brand new chassis but it looks old. Lynn has been saving parts,
Cobra parts for decades, so he built this car with old parts, but it's actually a new aluminum body, Kirkham body?
- [Lynn] Kirkham car. (exhales sharply) - But, I also used some
old suspension that I had, A-arms that I had that were
damaged that I repaired, brakes that were older,
people had replaced or I had replaced on other
people's cars, just old stuff. The seat belts, they're not
necessarily Cobra seat belts but they are the same
as the Cobra seat belts. I don't want people to
think that I took a lot of original Cobra's parts that
should be on an original car. - Right. - Ebay is loaded with this stuff. - No kidding! - I mean if you want a
Cobra steering wheel, you don't have to make one look, you don't have to buy an old one. You buy a new one and make it look old. But this happens to be an old
wheel and it isn't my favorite but it's a good old steering wheel. - [Host] What does this engine look like? Geez! Looks like it's overheated! (bewildered laughter)
- [Lynn] Yeah. - [Host] This car was a pile
of components how long ago? Two years ago or something? [Lynn] - Two years ago.
- Two years ago. And did you put all this
mud on here and stuff? - [Lynn] Yeah, I found a mud
puddle that just called to me. (laughs loudly) What made me, I started
off, I had old tires but they were wobbling,
I drove it and I said, "This car does not feel good to drive." So I went down and bought
a brand new set of tires, well they look too new so I had to find some muddy water to drive through, so it had just rained and Angeles
Crest Highway has got some good turnouts with mud puddles in them, so I went there and... - People at shows you go to, they're probably pissed
off at you like crazy. - [Lynn] Not as many
as I thought would be. - [Host] Really?
(laughter) - [Lynn] They love, I think they wish they had thought of it themselves. - [Host] Yeah yeah yeah, that's amazing. So it does not have a serial number? - [Lynn] No, it's got an AC serial number. We start with an AC chassis and title. - [Host] Is that right? - [Lynn] But I don't wanna
tell people what the number is. - [Host] Okay, yep, yep. - [Lynn] So I leave that alone. - [Host] Well that's cool, wow. - Mickey Thompson tie-in. I was gonna put Mickey
Thompson valve covers on it, I said "No, I can't do that." - [Host] What was the Mickey
Thompson story to this? - The guy that owned this knew, Michael Goodwin is the
fellow that got convicted of having Mickey Thompson killed. - Hah! Goodwin, now Goodwin raced this? - Yeah. - Did he really?
- In the 60s. - Wow!
