The muscular profile of the 1967 Cobra makes it one of the most popular sports cars of all time.
The interior of Dave Johnson's 1967 Cobra is completely unique and a thing of beauty. Ultrasuede, Ultraleather, snakeskin and a bit of chrome combine to create a visually stunning display. "It's some type of sea snake," says Johnson about the upholstery. "We wanted to use cobra skin, but cobra doesn't wear very well."
Dave Johnson's 1967 Ford Cobra replica has two sound systems and Johnson enjoys listening to both. "I rarely listen to music when I drive the car. The motor makes it own music," he explains. Packing a 351 Cleveland engine with several performance modifications, it can crank out 550hp with the help of a little nitrous boost. Engines like this don't hum, they growl.
"Driving the car is an amazing experience," says Johnson, who owns Acoustic Edge, an automotive installation school with campuses in Oklahoma City and Houston. As someone who teaches car audio installation for a living, Johnson certainly appreciates a high-performance sound system, too. The Cobra's is as distinguished as the car itself.
Dash With FlashJohnson's Acoustic Edge schools teach three subjects: upholstery, fabrication (fiberglass, woodworking, etc.) and electronics. The Cobra project provided an opportunity to use all three skill sets. Acoustic Edge instructors J.D. Hendrickson, Kyle Hix and Ashley Wright assisted Johnson on the Cobra. The trio of instructors actually assembled the Cobra and were involved in the design and installation of the sound system.
A nitrous oxide boost adds even more bite to this King Cobra.
The car was conceived to be a showcase for the instructors' handiwork, so almost every aspect of the vehicle's interior is customized. Johnson notes that the Cobra's factory dash is, well, ugly. It's basically a plain metal panel with an unattractive cluster of gauges. Johnson wanted something more appealing and modern.
Johnson's new dash design incorporates three gauges and an 8-inch touchscreen iMobile in-car computer monitor into a seamless fiberglass display trimmed with Ultraleather, which Johnson describes as "very soft and very durable." Far more visually appealing than the stock dash panel, the dash design is reminiscent of a super modified street rod.
In the trunk, the iMobile computer that acts as the system's brain tucks away out of sight. "It's a great system that has a lot more capability than we actually use," Johnson states. "It can access XM Radio, power a navigation system and lots of other stuff, but we just use it to play CDs."
To boost the signal strength to the amplifiers, Team Johnson installed a Phoenix Gold TLD22 line driver. No equalizers or external crossovers were needed. The crossover points are set with the built-in crossovers in the Memphis Car Audio amplifiers. The front speakers - Pioneer TS-D161R 6 1/2" coaxials - are powered by a Memphis Car Audio 16-MCA300, while an 16-MCD250 mono amp supplies juice to a pair of Focal midbass drivers located between the two seats. Like the computer, the amps and battery are all located out of sight in the car's trunk. "I absolutely love the Memphis Car Audio amps," admits Johnson. "They look nice and they're some of the best amps you can buy."