AC Cobra

Like many British car manufacturers, AC Cars produced small-series sports cars with a small six-cylinder in-line Bristol engine, including the AC Ace 2-seater roadster. It was a car with an aluminum body of manual assembly on a spatial frame made of steel pipe. The engines produced by Bristol Cars were designed by BMW before World War II, and were considered obsolete in the 1960s. In 1961, Bristol decided to discontinue the production of its engines and use the Ford Zephyr engine (2.6 liters) on its machines. In September 1961, former American race car driver Carroll Shelby sent a letter to AC Cars with a proposal to build a car with a V8 engine and its design changes. AC Cars agreed on condition that a suitable engine be found. At first, Carroll Shelby offered a Chevrolet order, but was refused. Ford, who wants to create a car that could compete with the Chevrolet Corvette, proposed a new Ford Windsor 260 HiPo (“High-Performance”) engine with a thin-walled block that could be used in this endeavor. In January 1962, AC Cars mechanics produced a prototype chassis under the number CSX0001 with a Ford Windsor 221 V8 engine. After testing and refinement, the engine and gearbox were removed, and the chassis was sent by Shelby to Los Angeles on February 2, 1962. His team installed the engine and transmission in less than eight hours and began road trials.

Starting production was not easy since AC Cars had already made most of the changes in the front of the AC Ace for the Ford Zephyr engine. The most important change for the V8 engine with increased power was the installation of a more durable rear differential. The only difference in the front of the first Cobra from AC Ace 2.6 was the steering gear, which had to be moved due to the wider V8 engine.

The first 75 Cobra Mark I cars (including the prototype) were equipped with a Ford Windsor V8 260 HiPo engine (4.2 L). The remaining 51 Cobra Mark Is were equipped with the more powerful Ford Windsor V8 289 HiPo (4.7 L). The car was manufactured in the UK, the engine was installed and painted in the USA.

At the end of 1962, AC Cars' chief engineer Alan Turner redesigned the front of the car. The new car was named "AC Cobra Mark II", its production began in early 1963. 528 Cobra Mark II were made by the summer of 1965.

By 1963, Cobra had lost its dominance in racing. Shelby tried to install a large Ford FE V8 390 engine . The development of a new chassis called the “AC Cobra Mark III” has begun.

The new car was developed in Detroit in collaboration with Ford. The new car had wide wings and a large hole in the body in front of the radiator. This car was powered by a 425-liter Ford FE 427 (7.0 L) engine. with., which provided a maximum speed of 262 km / h as standard or with an engine capacity of 485 liters. with. (362 kW), which provided a maximum speed of 290 km / h. Production of the Cobra Mark III began on January 1, 1965. Despite its impressive performance, the car did not sell well, so in order to lower the cost, some of the AC Cobra 427 were actually equipped with cheaper Ford 428 engines (7.0 L), designed not for racing but for use in road conditions. A total of about 300 Mark III cars were shipped to Shelby in the United States during the summer of 1965 and 1966. Unfortunately, the MK III missed homologation in the 1965 racing season, but successfully continued to win races until the early 70s.

Despite the success of AC Cobra in racing, the financial situation forced Ford and Shelby in 1967 to stop importing cars from England. AC Cars continued to produce the roadster with a small Ford engine (5.0 L) V8. It was sold in Europe until the end of 1967. AC also produced the AC Frua based on the extended Cobra 427 MK III (designed and built by Pietro Frua ). After Frua, AC Cars went on to create smaller cars and eventually went bankrupt in the late 1970s. The company’s equipment and rights to use the name were transferred to Autocraft .

Among collectors, the third generation AC Cobra is considered classic and prices for these cars start at a million dollars. In January 2013, the 1967 Shelby 427 Semi-Competition Cobra went under the hammer at an auction in the US for $ 2,007,500 .

Autocraft, which received AC 289 rigging after the bankruptcy of AC Cars, launched the AC 289 batch under the name Mark IV. Soon after, Carroll Shelby filed a lawsuit against AC Cars and Brian A. Angliss (founder of AutoCraft), in the US District Court in Los Angeles. A subsequent settlement led to a joint press release in which AC and Angliss admitted that Carroll Shelby was and is the only person who has the right to call their cars Cobra . Since the late 1980s, Carroll Shelby and Shelby Automobiles, Inc. have continued to manufacture Cobra vehicles under the Shelby Cobra FIA 289 and Shelby Cobra 427 S / C at their factory in Las Vegas, Nevada. These cars have retained the overall style and appearance of the original 1960s. Initially, cars (CSX4000 series) were made from old stocks, but gradually began to be assembled from parts from various suppliers. To date, Cobra bodies are made of fiberglass, some cars are custom-made with an aluminum body or with a carbon fiber body.

Cobra has had an extensive racing career. Shelby wanted it to be a Corvette-Beater (Corvette Slayer) and the car was like that. The Cobra racing was lighter than the Chevrolet Corvette by more than 200 kg, and developed 298 km / h (on the M1 motorway in 1964 driven by Jack Sears and Peter Bolton, it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest road car in the world) .

In an attempt to increase speed along the Mulsanne Straight (the most famous part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans ) on the Sarthe highway , Cobras were built with a coupe in the AC Cobra Mark II chassis. The most famous and numerous of them were the official Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe. Six of these machines were built, each of which is slightly different from the rest. AC Cars also produced the Le Mans coupe. The car existed in a single copy and was practically destroyed after hitting at high speed against the fence in the 1964 Le Mans race. To date, it has been completely rebuilt and is now in private hands in England. The third Willment Cobra Coupe was built by the JWA racing team. Of all the replicas , the Superformance Shelby Daytona Coupe is currently the only modern car recognized by Shelby as the successor to the original coupe.

Wins of the Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe:

• 1964 12 hours of Sebring (winning the GT class, Dave MacDonald / Bob Holbert)
• 1964 24 hours of Le Mans (winning the GT class, Dan Gurney / Bob Bondurant)
• 1964 RAC Tourist Trophy
• 1965 24 Hours of Daytona
• 1965 12 Hours of Sebring
• 1965 World Manufacturers Championship
• 1965 Italian Grand Prix at Monza (GT class victory)
• 1965 Nürburgring German Grand Prix (GT class victory)
• 1965 French Grand Prix at Reims (victory in GT class)
• 1965 Enna-Pergusa (winning the GT class)

• Friedman, Dave: “Shelby Cobra: the Shebly American color archives”, MBI Publishing Company, ISBN 0-87938-757-2

• Shelby American Inc. (eng.)
• The Cobra-Ferrari Wars