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Race-ready Cobras charm drivers into commitments

Most cars run on gasoline, but Bill Fishburne hopes to fuel Vintage Promotions Inc. of Asheville with testosterone. His rental-car customers drive 140 mph, and he demands a $25,000 letter of credit before he gives them the keys. Getting behind the wheel costs them $3,650 a day.

Fishburne, 58, sold internet of Asheville, an internet-service provider, in 1998 for more than $4 million. In January 2000, he and Jim Harrell, owner of Nostalgia Motor Cars Ltd. in Rock Hill, S.C., founded Vintage Promotions, which rents race-ready Shelby Cobras to run in the Team Shelby Historic Racing Series. The Cobras are new, but they are built to 1965 specifications.

Vintage Promotions is fielding six for the six-race series, and by March, four drivers had put down $21,900 each for the series. They must have amateur-competition licenses from the Sports Car Club of America or similar groups. Most are middle-aged executives. "The Cobra takes most of us back to when we were teen-agers," says Fishburne, an Asheville native and company president.

Fishburne, a 1966 graduate of N.C. State University, estimates the first year will cost $1.25 million. A lot of the expense is in equipment -- eight $85,000 cars, including two spares, and a $250,000 hauler. One way or another, the company will still have the cars at year-end. Rental contracts not only cover wrecks but blown engines and other driver-caused damage.

Las Vegas-based Shelby American Inc., which makes the cars, is underwriting much of the cost. Owner Carroll Shelby hopes some drivers will pay $85,500 to buy their own Cobras.

Cars have fascinated Fishburne since he was 14. A few years later, he saw his first Cobra. "I slobbered all over it," he says. His first job out of college was writing for Car & Driver magazine. Drafted in 1967, he spent four years as a Special Forces officer, then drifted into public relations. On the side, he was an amateur sports-car racer. in 1979, he returned to Asheville to work for his father's company, Fishburne International inc., a maker of tobacco-packing equipment. He left in 1983 to open Computer Land stores, but he sold out at a loss of about $1 million in 1992 when the parent company was dragged down by an investor lawsuit.

Fishburne bought a 40% stake in Electronic Office inc., which created Internet of Asheville in 1995. He borrowed $500,000 to buy out the Internet provider two years later. Now, Fishburne expects Vintage to...