I don't know what to tell you man.
When I was a much younger guy and the internet was much newer, a Cobra was a life goal and I researched them heavily. Like everything now, trying to find things on the net more then 3 years old is about impossible.
Factory 5 is one of the kit places that used original shell molds. They don't talk about it much anymore. Maybe their alterations like a wider footwell are so popular they sell enough they don;t use that as marketing anymore. Or maybe they were told they can't claim original for legal reasons from whoever owns the rights (Ford owns the Cobra name itself to this day) I admit things in the last 5 years may have drastically changed, I have been working on Mopars and wasn't watching Ford news.
As for $40k, you can get a kit, minus the 427/toploader for under $20k. If you want it to be bare bones chassis/shell, you can get them for under $14k. Did you even go look? A 427 is not cheap, but it isn't 20,000 dollars either. If you want a 289, you can find them on craigs list as cores for $300.
You can buy 5.0/T5 drive away kits for about 40-45k depending on options. A couple places are working on "modern" chassis to use Ford's coyote crate packages. I expect they will be more like 75-100k, but they will be faster then the original with a 6 speed installed.
Here, sold in 2019 for 9 grand. second thing that came up in a net search:
No Reserve: Ford FE 427 V8 Engine Project w/ Transmission
if you don;t want to lift a finger to put the car together, it is just like anything else with cars, it is going to cost you $$$$ instead of time.
And again, younger crowds look at the price and what they get because they aren't attached to old stuff like we are. You can buy a Viper for 45k every day on facebook market. You can buy a new vette. The kids like the Miatas, and especially Honda S2000(prices went stupid on those lately) so it isn't like the Cobra has the corner on the roadster/two seater market. So we are back to old guys hyping the price, like I said in my last long post.
