Customer Profile – Terry Krueger

FFR 4023RD, Fountain Inn, SC

forum handle:   jehu

email:   krueger1010@bellsouth.net
 
 

Terry and his wife Josi, love to drive their Factory Five.  So much so, that they find it hard to get out of the car.  In fact, since they purchased the (just broken in, 6000 mile) car from Jeff Collins and the talented crew at Whitby Motorcars in January of this year, he has logged in more than 8,600 miles, AND tattooed the car on his arm!

 

When Terry sent us his photos from their most recent 3200 MILE ROADTRIP!, we thought we had to share these with the Factory Five faithful.

 

As if designed with Terry and Josi in mind, the car had been originally set up with a killer Pro-Formance Unlimited 351 Windsor package (450 hp at the crank), a proprietary radical cam, as well as a Ken Bauman “Baumanator TCS” computer (which allows you to hook up, via a 9 pin serial cable, to your laptop and change the shift points to suit your driving style).  In addition, however, it has Air Conditioning, Heater/Defrost, and Cruise Control – perfect for long trips. 
 

Along with their penchant for staring down the little white stripes, you see, Terry is an Amsoil dealer, and Amsoil focuses on performance and durability in their lubricants.
 

Every part of this car has AMSOIL in it: Engine, Transmission, Rear-end, and Cooling system.
 

So the Factory Five became the perfect marriage for an Amsoil company car – a virtual rolling Amsoil billboard, low maintenance, fun to drive and the perfect balance between performance and drivability.  No surprise, every one of his clients can’t wait to talk to the dealer from South Carolina.

 

To carry all of the goods that they need, to travel the longer trips, as well as some product samples, Terry even invested in a Champion Luggage Trailer to tow the goods in a trailer customized to match the car.

 

Despite his youthful exhuberance and driving enthusiasm, Terry is no spring chicken. At 65, he has had 5 heart attacks, 4 angioplasties, 1 quadruple bypass open heart surgery, 2 tachycardia events, 1 Bilateral Knee Replacements, severe Congestive Heart Failure Disease, and a runny nose for years.  By any measure, he could be granted an honorable discharge from even the staunchest cult, but like the other FFROGs out there putting rubber to asphalt, he can’t seem to stop.
 
 
 

“Our whole purpose in making this trip was to enjoy doing what others think would not be enjoyable!  We had a ball, and we are ready to go again!”

We must have got 500 thumbs up, 200 "V" signs, a million smiles and thousands of questions at the pumps, which we always enjoy answering!

We hope our adventure will inspire you to dust off your Cobra and take it across country!

 

Terry’s recommendation (in his words), is “Don’t just be a Cobra waxer – be a Cobra driver”.  We, at Factory Five, couldn’t have said it better - well, maybe, but it loses it’s punch without the “C” words.

 

Their next trip – tentatively up the East Coast, through New York City, and on to Boston, with a detour over to see the birthplace in Wareham.  Then, he surmises, Niagara Falls, being so close, deserves a side trip – and well, once you’re in Niagara, Detroit is right around the corner, isn’t it.
 
(it begs us to question whether Terry and Ralph Button (“The Traveler”) have been separated at birth?)
 
 
 
 
Below are just a few of Terry’s daily diary emails, and photos, from the road:
 

“The weather man said it was going to rain for two days up there (London, OH) - so I [we] decided to go to my home town, Lake City, MN and visit my ailing 83 year old mother and also help celebrate the 4 day, 35th annual "Water Ski Days”, where the very first recorded water skiing occurred on the Mississippi River there on Lake Pepin!
 

We arrived back in Greenville at 1:15 pm Saturday [today] July 1st after leaving on June 20. We drove a total of 3,206.4 miles in twelve days. In this distance, the engine ate 3 quarts of AMSOIL's Series 2000 - 20W-50 racing Oil This is not bad at all considering the way this racing engine is built loose and the blistering pace we drove with the trailer behind! It was hot too! The oil never went below the 'Safe' line but I always like to put it to the full line - so probably some of that oil was blown out! The AMSOIL Dual Remote Filter did the job, as the oil is still not dirty!”
 
 
 

“Our FFR4023K roadster performed flawlessly as did our Pro-Formance 351 Windsor engine which used 196.2 gallons of 93 octane gasoline! The raw numbers would reveal an average of 16.34 miles per gallon overall, driving all of the highway miles at 75 miles per hour towing the Champion Luggage Trailer [about 750 pounds loaded] with the Rostra Cruise Control pulling the AOD transmission in lockup as much as possible with the engine turning at 2,150 RPM's. Of course there are many times in traffic that you must "release" and "resume" - then kick it up to 2.800 rpm's - high enough for the over-drive to lock-up again. I estimate that in the twelve days that we were at various locations, we drove about 10% [320 miles] of our total miles in local city driving - which would only yield about 10 to 12 MPG. This must be factored into the total.

 

On one leg of 438 mile of very flat terrain we got 17.7 mpg. The city driving occurred in Louisville, KY - Seymour, IN - Lake City, MN - Wabasha, MN - Redwing, MN - Rochester, MN - Kansas City, MO - Kansas City, KS - St Louis, MO [ 2 days].”

 

“The photos that follow are but a fraction of those we took plus 2 hours of DVD, but are representative of what we saw!

 

Rather than try to caption each picture, we will simply tell you a short narrative and let you figure out what you are looking at! First, we stayed six day at my mother's house where we enjoyed many beautiful sight of the place where I grew up! Lake City has some spectacular vistas which one would not expect to see along any part of the Mississippi River.”  [ http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f126/krueger1010/Vacation/ - 183 pictures]
 
 
 

“The lake and bluffs of both the Minnesota and Wisconsin boundaries create what is known as the Hiawatha Valley as the widest part of the river in it's full length [3 miles wide] and hosts the largest motor and sailing marina on the entire length of the Mississippi River!”

 

“Of course, we had to enter our Cobra in the annual Lyon's Club Show on the Lincoln High School Football Field. We were placed in "Q" section [Two Seat Sports Cars].

 

Out of a total of about 150 cars, our class had only 14 cars, but there were two immaculate 59 Corvettes and two very nice T-Birds plus others! It was so interesting to have people walk past the others to congregate around our car and ask "What is it?". At any rate we took 1st Place! They mentioned over the P.A. that we had come over 1,000 miles from South Carolina to be in the show... :-)  Oh, yes.... I found out that our car made the Lake City Graphic newspaper with mention of coming all the way from South Carolina!”

 

“The next day there was the annual Water Ski Days parade. I was especially taken with a team of six giant perfect Black Percheron Draft Horses all draped in Sterling Silver tack! The pictures do not do them justice [I choked-up as they passed by]. After watching the 110 unit Water Ski Parade pass by, we all ate right there at my brother-in-laws, father’s house, where the parade passed!”
 
 
 

“On Tuesday [sixth day] we left early for Kansas City so we could stop by and thank Premier Cobras for making our hitch bar for us. A few miles into Iowa, before Des Moines, we saw many giant windmills and stopped to investigate!”

 

“The next Morning in Kansas City we got to Premier’s location too early so we just took some pictures and left for St Louis, MO. where we stayed two days  The second day we went down town to see the Arch. They had the River Road closed for a Carnival that was setting up for the 4th of July! We took some pictures down by the river and then pulled the car up on the highway in front of the Arch.”

 

“The parking lot for he Arch had a sign "LOT FULL" but we looked and there were only about ten cars in there, so we pulled in anyway! I pulled up behind a beautiful 1988 Red Ferrari Testarossa. The old guy and his wife were from Tulsa about 300 miles away. He said he pulled in there because his car was overheating! By the time we got to the top of the Arch.... I zoomed in with the camera and saw his car being put on a roll-back and hauled away. maybe the water pump or something - tough luck!”
 
 
 
 
“Next Morning, off to Birmingham, AL, via Nashville, I met as FFR Cobra owner named Dwight Frye from Florence, AL - off the FFR Chat room from that area [had my laptop along - Day's Inn's have free wireless internet

He and several from the Birmingham area went to the London Ohio Show.... THEY DROVE !!!  We agreed that there are two kinds of Cobra owners..... DRIVERS and WAXERS!”