Stripped down mustang???
I'd venture to say the majority of factory 5 cars, especially over the last decade are made with mostly new parts - crate engines, high perf brakes etc. You think the pelican parts community is tight knit. Try the factory five community. The owners of factory five have been known to show up at club meetings. Factory Five is being sued by Shelby (the bastard!), but I haven't followed how that is going.
As far as the driving experience, as mentioned the 911 (even the older ones)is a luxury car compared to the cobra. The cobra is fast, loud, fast, cramped, fast, raw, and about 100 times the attention getter that a Porsche is. When I lived in Phoenix I drove the cobra out to dinner at a swanky restaurant. Felt bad for the guys who drove up in a 996 Turbo and Modena 360. They had to park around back.
I actually have a hard top with windows, heat and ac in my cobra and it's still nowhere near as comfortable as the Porsche.
I had the cobra and a 993 at the same time, talk about tough choices.
And as far as that book bagging on the Factory Five cars, the book is written by someone who makes his money selling "high line" cobra replicas, ie Superformance, ERA, etc. I'd put mine up against any of those makes. I had some custom work done to my car by an ERA owner and he wasn't ashamed to be working on it!!! At the DV spring fling (a cobra event in OH), some Superformance owners couldn't believe mine was a factory five. And I don't even have the nicest Factory Five in NJ.
That being said, there are some FF's that
are put together with left over parts, by someone not skilled enough to build a car. They should be easy to spot. Just like an ill maintained 911 would be. Buyer beware.
Now the cobra hardly gets driven (weather and a leg injury). In this economy Its hard to justify having the cobra, but I'm still hanging on to it (trying to at least!).