Cobra Experience Museum, with a Side of Cars & Coffee
When we rolled up to Martinez, California for the Cobra Experience Museum and their Cars and Coffee event, we certainly weren’t disappointed. This little known gem of Cobra history located in the East Bay Area of San Francisco is a stunning collection of Cobra cars and artifacts.
With the participant cars showing up bright an early on the cold and windy day, each one was worth a good look. The donuts and coffee provided by the organizers just made it that much better.
While the Cobra Experience Museum itself is, of course a collection of awesome old Fords (that we’ll get into in a minute), it wasn’t just one make or model that showed up to the meet out front of the museum.
In fact, it wasn’t just one scene represented but instead it was a blending of old and new, German and American, restorations, and completely modded muscle cars.
One of the most eye-catching and definitely a favorite of ours from the morning was Roger’s 64.5 Mustang-turned gasser which we covered last week.
Another car we saw fit to follow up on was this ’67 Plymouth Barracuda with a supercharged straight six. It’s always awesome to run into something different, especially when you don’t expect it. This wasn’t a huge meet, but all of the cars were just quality builds.
Lurking behind the aluminum-bodied AC Cobra was a well-done Mustang, with all the bells and whistles in the engine bay in pristine condition.
Further back from the two sixties rods, two later model ponies lurked in another parking lot. And actually, as more time passes the Foxbody is hardly a late model affair. In fact, as you surely have heard by now, Goodguys is now allowing ‘87 and earlier cars into their shows so expect to see a few of the early Foxbodies making an appearance in this years’ national events.
Of course, a visit to the Cobra Experience Museum just isn’t complete without a stop in the museum itself. It’s an unreal collection of machinery inside.
Front and center is the second of two original factory Dragonsnakes, originally built in 1964. It’s got the small-block 289 up front and set track records in Fremont and Riverside, California, as well as Arlington, Washington back in the day.
Along one wall is a line-up of high-horsepower race motors on display, from a humorous piston comparison to a big-block race motor (check out those carbs!).

Further in the back are more race-prepped and rare Mustangs, sitting next to a legend. The GT40P here is one of thirteen 1967 J-cars built by Kar Kraft and makes use Ford’s 427 cubic inch engine. Of course, the final version of this car went on to win Le Mans in 1967, keeping the Ferraris at bay.

And outside, the Cars and Coffee meet was still in full swing. With events every Third Sunday of the month, the guys meet up at 8:30 in the morning before the museum opens at 10am. Come on out!
Cobra Experience Museum Photo Extra!