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From the archive: An Ace from AC, assisted by a V-8 from Ford, is a 150-mph car built for production racing.

The direct approach in the production of a high-per­formance car is to combine a small, light chassis and body, and a big, powerful engine. It may not be subtle, but it is surefire, and no one could be better acquainted with this fact than Carroll Shelby. The Pride of Texas has spent a lot of years charging about in all kinds of automobiles and has a fine appreciation of what will, in practical terms, get a person down the road in a hurry. Hence, when Shelby re­tired from competition driving and began making plans to embark on a venture into automobile manufacturing, it was inevitable that the direct, and effective, approach would be employed.

After due deliberation and prolonged negotiation (the de­tails of which we do not pretend to know) agreements were reached with AC, of England, to make the basic automobile for Shelby, and Ford, of America, to supply engines.

This story originally appeared in the September 1962 issue of Road & Track.

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The Cobra’s chassis is a very close development of the latest AC “Ace.” The frame follows almost exactly the standard AC pattern, having a pair of round-section, tubular main-members running parallel between the box structures, to which the front and rear suspension links and springs are mounted. However, the tubes in the Cobra frame have a slightly greater wall thickness and there is some extra cross bracing.

All 4 wheels are independently suspended. The suspension consists of A-arms leading from the box structures on the frame to the lower ends of the “uprights” at the wheels and transverse leaf springs (one at each end of the chassis) com­pleting the parallelogram at the upper ends of the uprights.

At Shelby's request, the A-arms and leaf springs have been lengthened to move the wheels out and widen the tread. The springing has been stiffened by the addition of a “helper” leaf above the main leaf. Also, the rear wheels are given a considerable negative camber to reduce the oversteering effects of the car’s rearward weight bias. The suspension sys­tem is lacking in some respects, as its parallelogram action tilts the wheels over when the chassis rolls, but it is all-inde­pendent, as all too few touring chassis are, and it gives good results.

The AC’s usual 16-in. wire wheels are replaced by 15-in. triple-laced, wide-rim wheels. These carry a variety of tires —depending on customer preference—but most of the cars will be Goodyear-shod. Dunlop racing tires will be catalogued as an option but Ol’ Shel has said that anything a buyer wants, he will get. We would offer one bit of advice to pros­pective purchasers; select a tire that gives plenty of tread against the ground; with the Cobra’s power/weight ratio, you will need the traction.

Traction will also be needed to get the maximum benefits from the Cobra’s braking system. Girling disc brakes are standard, using discs 12 in. in diameter and, although there is no power-booster, the pedal pressure requirements are not too high. On the prototype, the rear brakes were mounted inboard, one on each side of the drive casing, but an outboard mounting will probably be standard on the series-produced cars.

Power for the Cobra is one of Ford’s new lightweight V-8s. It is the largest of the Fairlane-series engines, having a displacement of 260 cu in. and, in single-carburetor form, pushes out an "advertised" 260 bhp. Our test car had the "street" engine, which is virtually stock Ford but equipped with solid valve lifters and a camshaft of non-standard but unspecified timing. We were somewhat surprised to find that it would idle with only a trace of lumpiness, pull strongly at almost any speed, and buzz past the 5800 rpm power peak to 7200 rpm before it began to sound distressed. Also surprisingly, the power did not appear to fall off much even at 7000 rpm-1200 rpm over the point of maximum power.

For the buyer who wants to go racing Shelby has something special under development: a highly-tuned competition version of the standard engine with a "top-end-grind" camshaft, higher compression and 4 double-throat Weber carburetors. These are side-draft pattern carburetors, and are mounted on long ram tubes that criss-cross over the top of the engine. In tuned form, the Cobra/Ford engine will produce about 325 bhp, and the added power should do really impressive things for a car that is blindingly fast on 260 bhp.

Special drive components are used all the way through in the Cobra. The transmission is from Borg-Warner (which makes these 4-speed units for Ford) and, although the prototype car had rather wide ratios, Borg-Warner—and Ford— have decided to invest in the tooling for close-ratio gearing. Such gearing would eliminate the "gap" that now exists between 3rd and 4th, and the top-end acceleration would be substantially improved. With the present gear staging, the shift into 4th entails a drop in engine speed that would be a serious handicap in competition.

Final drive components—gears, axles, U-joints, etc.—are heavier than those used in the standard AC. A Salisbury drive-gear assembly, of the type used by Jaguar, fits into a housing that is part of the frame (per long-time AC practice) and drives the wheels through Spicer shafts and U-joints. Both shafts and joints have been selected for the strength needed to transmit the power from the Ford engine.

Bodywork on the Cobra is almost, but not quite, the same as on the latest AC Ace roadsters. The only change worth mentioning is the flared valance over each wheel well. These are required to provide clearance for the Cobra's large-section tires and widened tread. Shelby is considering making up a few Cobras with AC's Aceca (coupe) body and these would have a top speed even higher than the roadster's.

Within, the Cobra has even more racing-car flavor than is apparent from without. The cockpit (that term exactly describes the passenger area in the Cobra) is quite snug, and the leather-covered bucket seats are real hip-huggers, with lateral support that extends almost from shoulder to knee. Instrumentation is more elaborate than in most racing cars, consisting of speedo, tach, oil-pressure and temperature and water temperature, with a clock, an ammeter and fuel gauge tossed in for good measure (ouch!). The speedo had been removed from the prototype we tested, as the instrument supplied by AC had a scale that reached only the 120-mph mark.

Control positioning isn’t bad—if you are less than 6 feet tall. The wheel is a bit close for a driver with long arms and the pedals (clutch and brake) are manipulated with one’s knees drawn well up. Shelby tells us that he plans adjust­ments to give more room and we certainly hope this is done. Our tall-ish test driver had his work complicated slightly by the lack of clearance, which resulted in his knees banging against the under edge of the instrument panel with each ap­plication of the clutch or brake. Part of this was due to the positioning of the roll-bar in the car; it was placed so that the seat could not be moved back far enough.

In retrospect, we can see that the close-up position of the steering wheel on the prototype may have had its advantages. The Cobra had very quick steering, and what seemed like a lot of caster in the front wheels, and considerable effort is required at the wheel rim to force the car into corners at any­ thing faster than a touring pace. With the wheel in close, it was easier to apply the needed muscle.

Despite the less-than-perfect control positioning (which should not be true of the series-produced cars) the Cobra’s handling was good. With so much power on tap, the inept or inexperienced could get into considerable trouble, but a middlin’-good driver can certainly get the car around a racecourse in a hurry. One facet of the handling that made us feel a trifle wary at first was the extreme angle (relative to its true line of travel) the car assumes when drifting. There is some oversteer, and when the Cobra is shoved into a turn with brio, the rear wheels creep right out. Treated with any finesse at all, the Cobra will hold its tail-out attitude without trying to spin, but a clumsy throttle foot could give you a thrill.

Insofar as sheer speed is concerned, the Cobra offers more than almost any sports/touring car in the world, and more than any at near its price. Its acceleration, even with the “small” engine, is equal to the best efforts of drag-strip-tuned Corvettes, and it does the job without the benefit of stump-yanker gearing. No special talent is required to get under the 14-sec mark for a standing-start 1/4-mile; bang down the throttle-pedal, simultaneously drop in the clutch, and catch the next higher gear each time you reach 7200 rpm. If you persist, the car will accelerate until the tachometer shows 7000 rpm in 4th, which is, without making any allowance for tire expansion, 153 mph. This speed was reached with the car in touring trim, and we were at first reluctant to be­lieve it ourselves. However, we checked and double-cheeked the accuracy of the tachometer, the gear ratio and the rolling- radius of the tires, and the maximum speed was at least the 153 mph given on the data panel. We cannot give a timed maximum because this test was conducted at Riverside Race­ way, which has enough straightaway room to allow the Cobra to reach its top speed, but not enough to permit timing the car over a measured distance at that speed. In fact, some fairly vigorous braking was required to bring the speed down to about 85-90 mph for a drama-free passage through turn 9 at the straightaway’s end. As is understandable, we were properly delighted to find that the Cobra’s brakes will yank the car down from 150 mph without a trace of wavering or weakness. The brakes are about the best we’ve ever tried.

Even though something of a hybrid, and lacking in the sort of engine-room niceties that delight the purist, the Cobra is a sports car with more “sport” than almost anything available at any price. Its Ford engine may not have overhead camshafts and lots of polished aluminum castings, but it pumps out the power, it is reliable, and it can be serviced in any little town or hamlet in the country. The styling is “present-day racy,” but is clean enough in line to look good for many years. The finish has that hand-wrought appear­ance that cannot be machine-made and the Cobra looks every bit as good as its price tag. Indeed, we cannot think where more all-around performance can be purchased at the same dollar outlay.