AC Heritage's new cobra

General Cobra & Ace topics
User avatar
peterc
T289R Member
T289R Member
Posts: 2041
Joined: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:05 am
Location: Surrey

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by peterc »

Roger point taken, AC Cars doesn't exist anymore so therefore no new car should be entitled to use that title.
I didn't want to suggest that a Shelby or Heritage ( or similar company ) built car would be worth mega money like the original 60's Cobra's or the new Jag, merely that they would probably be worth more than a car built by any other company because of their closer link to the past.
The question would be of course how much more would they be worth than a well built Ali car from the Hawk stable. E.g. Yours.
There is always caveat emptor but the buying public ought to be made properly aware of where the car has been made and the manufacturing comapanies background. There will always be the less educated guy who will buy anything that just looks good. Maybe that guy who quizzed me about the lovely sleek blue Ferrari we had on our stand !!
No I am not kidding.
Peter C
User avatar
Roger King
Posts: 4396
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:29 pm
Location: St Ives, Cambs

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Roger King »

My view, and it is only that, is that a carefully researched and built car will (or should) have more going for it than these factory continuations. In the first place, it is now impossible to build in quantity (no matter how small) an accurate replica car to allow registration in the UK (and, I would think, most other countries) to sell to the general public. We know this better than most, through our experiences with SVA and IVA. They simply can't come close.
That aside, It is simply uneconomic for a manufacturer to build properly accurate replica (or whatever you want to call them) cars that are as accurate as they would need to be to be compared with an original. As an example regarding componentry, most Lucas components were date-coded. If you are going to build a car and sell it as a super-accurate continuation of a 1963/4 car, at those sort of prices, it will at least need to have Lucas components with the appropriate dates on them. Lucas, who are still in business, do not allow replica parts to use the Lucas logo, let alone the correct date-code. To build an accurate MkI 260 would require the purchase of period items that are not currently for sale, unless you are really lucky. And I do not believe that 'AC', or whoever they are, will tool up to make every switch, brake caliper etc. - and put them through current manufacturing testing requirements (which they will fail) - to make 9 cars. And - are they really tooling up to use BSF threads throughout? The custom-made fastener bill would be eye-watering enough on its own (and if anyone finds a source of 7/16 Aerotite nuts, please let me know...).
I would dearly love to be allowed an hour in a workshop with one of these cars when they have been made. In my eyes, personal issues aside, they cannot be worth as much as a very carefully researched replica. They're no more ACs than our cars are: the only connection they have to the original cars is via a specious paper trail.

...and as for using a Chebby engine, well...
Maxakarudy
Posts: 104
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:29 am

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Maxakarudy »

peterc wrote: There will always be the less educated guy who will buy anything that just looks good. Maybe that guy who quizzed me about the lovely sleek blue Ferrari we had on our stand !!
No I am not kidding.
Peter C
Must have been "The Count" Quentin Wilson as he did exactly that at the Stratford motor show this year, when the parade went down the High St he described the Daytona Coupe as some Ferrari replica :lol:
User avatar
Roger King
Posts: 4396
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:29 pm
Location: St Ives, Cambs

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Roger King »

Maxakarudy wrote:
peterc wrote: There will always be the less educated guy who will buy anything that just looks good. Maybe that guy who quizzed me about the lovely sleek blue Ferrari we had on our stand !!
No I am not kidding.
Peter C
Must have been "The Count" Quentin Wilson as he did exactly that at the Stratford motor show this year, when the parade went down the High St he described the Daytona Coupe as some Ferrari replica :lol:
Good old Count Quentula. At the last Stratford Festival we were lining up for the start, and he started telling me about how he was now a Mustang owner and loving it. 'Beautiful car', he said as he draped his flag over the bonnet (ooer). 'it's a '66, isn't it?' - which is what he has.

It's a '68.
peterpjb
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2016 10:51 am

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by peterpjb »

Roger King wrote:
peterc wrote:A continuation or replica model made by the original factory like the Shelby factory in the US must have some cache just as Jaguar have now chosen to make a few more lightweight E type's at around £1 million each.
Not sure about that - no Cobra bodies, chassis, running gear, etc. were ever built by Shelby in the US. Jaguars were built by Jaguar in England, as the new old ones are. The point is, AC (as a car marufacturing company with any kind of connection with the original company apart from in people's imagination) simply does not exist any more and hasn't for some time. The 'continuation' (whatever) Jaguars can claim to be Jaguars, the Cobras cannot claim to be ACs. And I will not count 'Shelby' Cobras as in my opinion there's no such thing, and never has been.
first of all, the inventor of this 'kitcar' called cobra was a man called carroll 'shelby',
maybe john tojeiro can be mentioned as the inventor of the ace-chassis, the hurlocks, owner family of ac in that time, had nothing to do with the idea of the cobra, they just produced the rollers for shelby and some complete cars for europe, neither ford who only sold the engines....
the largest amount of cobras were sold in the usa and are still there, in the usa they are called 'shelby' cobras, so only a minority in the world calls them 'ac' cobra, in reality only the cob and cox cars are 'ac' cobras, the csx cars are 'shelby' cobras

SAI, shelby american inc., completed the rollers, delivered by ac, with drivetrains and modified some of them, especially the racecars,
nearly the same thing they did with the continuation series, some bodys still came from england, the most aluminum bodys came from kirkham, SAI was still the same company with the same owner until 2012 when shelby passed away, the mso's of the continuation cars were signed by carroll shelby himself until 2012, so these cars are the only ones which can be titeled 'continuation' in my opinion, and they are genuine shelby cobras (for sure no historic originals) with all the rights of the name and the genuine car manufacturer.

AC stopped being AC in 1986, after that some guys bought the rights of a name, nothing else, and that is another cup of tea
User avatar
nikbj68
T289R Member
T289R Member
Posts: 1475
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:31 pm
Location: Anglesey, North Wales.
Contact:

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by nikbj68 »

BUT...
AC were the manufacturers of ALL of the original Cobras, and it was their chassis numbering system, so shouldn't Shelby (or Kirkham/NDM/ or whoever...)have their own...? :roll:
Only a Shelby built at Thames Ditton with a CSX number is a real one!!! :twisted:
Hawk 289 FiA...AT LAST!!!
User avatar
Roger King
Posts: 4396
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:29 pm
Location: St Ives, Cambs

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Roger King »

...what he said...
Paul Blore
Posts: 2077
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:20 pm
Location: Leicestershire, UK
Contact:

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Paul Blore »

I can say that Kirkham have their own chassis numbering system.

Shelby was a great self-publicist and frequently rewrote the facts to suit his own version of reality. It is a fact that the Cobra as we know it wouldn't have existed if not for Shelby, but to claim that AC were nothing more than a minority player in the Cobra story is disingenuous in the extreme.

With the 289, Ford was little more than an enthusiastic parts supplier, but that changed with the 427 as they were largely responsible for the design of the new Mk.III chassis and AC's role was correspondingly diminished as a result.

Paul
User avatar
nikbj68
T289R Member
T289R Member
Posts: 1475
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:31 pm
Location: Anglesey, North Wales.
Contact:

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by nikbj68 »

Paul Blore wrote:Ford... were largely responsible for the design of the new Mk.III chassis and AC's role was correspondingly diminished as a result.
AC's role was not very diminished, they still built every Mk.III in entirety(minus drivetrain, of course, as per 260/289). They didn't design the Ace(and therefore by extension, the Cobra) chassis either, merely adapted John Tojeiro's, so I don't see a huge difference myself. :wink:
Hawk 289 FiA...AT LAST!!!
Paul Blore
Posts: 2077
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:20 pm
Location: Leicestershire, UK
Contact:

Re: AC Heritage's new cobra

Post by Paul Blore »

I said "correspondingly" Nik, not "completely". :wink:
Tojeiro's involvement pre-dated Shelby's, so the Mk.II chassis came as part and parcel with AC's involvement, so who designed it is irrelevant in this context.
Whereas the Mk.III chassis was designed by Ford at Dearborn and that wouldn't have happened if not for Shelby's involvement.

Paul
Post Reply