Last week, I drove a 1965 Shelby Cobra. It was a 427, a big-block car, one of just 260 such street Cobras produced. This was the real thing -- no small matter with a Cobra -- not one of the countless replicas, kit cars or continuation models. It oozed history and engineering purity and hot-rod soul. You can see it in the picture at left, as well as the one below the jump.

The Cobra I drove is what Shelby guys call a "narrow-hip" car, one of just 32 built without flared rear fenders. It is owned by one of the most generous people I know, and I am still shocked that he was nice enough to let me drive it. It has never been restored, only repainted once. It is damn near the most perfect thing on God's green earth. 

The car is not the focus of this post. I am not going to tell you how driving a real 427 Cobra changed my life, though it most certainly did. I'm here to talk about you.

Weird transition, right? OK, fine. There's a good chance you're interested in this, so I'll say it anyway. You want to know what driving a real 427 Cobra is like? It's amazing. It's mind-blowing. It is one of a mere handful of legendary cars I've driven -- and I've been behind the wheel of thousands of machines, more than I can count -- that has lived up to the hype.

Have you ever sat in an unrestored 1960s muscle car? There's an honesty there, an undiluted, working-class middle finger to law-abiding society. The feeling is found only in those cars that haven't been taken apart, the ones that haven't seen a modern paint booth or some overenthusiastic detailer's hands. Combine that with the staggering purity of purpose you get in a continental sports car of the '50s or '60s -- anything with a hand-built body and an interior that reeks of Old Pub -- and you've got a Cobra. To make a 427, add equal parts Ford top-loader 4-speed (a dump-truck heavy shift lever, a short clutch) and the KA-POCKA-KA-POCKA oil-drum-beaten-with​-a-lead-mallet noise of a Detroit big-block engine. Season with impossibly light manual steering (I've driven Mazda Miatas with heavier helms) and a heaping dose of Texas-chicken-farmer​ attitude. It felt modern and 50 years old and fast as hell all at once.

I drove the car in question at a Michigan road course on a gorgeous day. If you're curious, it sounded exactly like this, only louder. (That last link is to a video of the actual car.) I pootled around, off-line and at times painfully slow on purpose, paranoid about hurting the car and going bankrupt paying for it. I saw triple-digit speeds in a few places, but I took no risks. 

Regardless, it was insane. I will remember it until the day I die. 

But back to what I was saying about you.

The car I drove is worth lotto-winnings money, and there is no way -- none, zip, zero -- that I am ever going to make enough cash to buy one. A replica isn't the same, and driving a real Cobra is like groping Scarlett Johansson: Only a lucky few get to do it legally. But the lasting impact here was more than just the opportunity to drive a legend. Until last week, a 427 Cobra was one of my bucket-list cars -- a machine I would have swapped a kidney for in order to drive.