Comments: 1-15, 16
The wheels are getting slightly pitted, but that's to be expected on a nearly 40 year old car.
Some minor overheating (since remedied).
It's very, very, very loud! Your head freezes and your toes burn. The driving position is uncomfortable and the wind nearly rips my head off.
People stare all the time and everyone thinks it's a replica. Apparently it's capable of 0-60mph in about 4 seconds. Never tried it, but it certainly feels that fast.
I would sooner sell my kidneys than this car. My wife hates it.
Unload your wife before the car, a car like that the women must be lining up to meet you.
A few hundred true A/C Cobras left, millions of women. Sell the wife.
Keep the car and the wife - she'll keep the centre of gravity nearer to the centre line and with that amount of torque you'll never know she's there.
Tell the admiring women she's your secretary / housekeeper / minder, whatever. Anyway, with a car like that, what good are women (other than for ballast - see above)?
If I could have writen this in green ink it would have matched my complexion - with envy!
Ah Yes! Memories of the Cobra Beast:
Growing up in Midland, TX, and hearing various roars and shrieks and howls coming from the direction of Midland Air Park, Sunday afternoons, I and my fellow teenagers were drawn there like moths to a flame.
SCCA, of course and they were all there--the Fiat Abarths, Elise's, Elan's, Formula Fords, Cooper Mini's, the occasional Jag C.
A couple years later the noises got louder, when Guy Mabee and Carroll Shelby started showing up with their stuff. Shelby first caught our eye with his Birdcage Maserati--most beautiful car I have ever seen, before or since.
But no one ever looked back when, one Sunday, they brought out their Ford AC Cobra. Holy S--t! Cam so full-race, the thing wouldn't even idle under 1k rpm, and even so, was rocking so bad as to wear out its shocks.
The drivers always had to yell at us kids to "Stay Away from the Sides!" when they were idleing/revving, but even so a couple of us got our socks burned off, due to the under-door, straight-out-blooey exhausts.
Their mutual goal was the first 200 mph sports car. They failed with both the Cobra and the Birdcage, but finally got it with a hybrid yellow fiberglass job, which wasn't near as cool as the Cobra.
FWIW,
AMc
PS: Many years later, Chip Genassi built some of his first engines in an old airplane hangar complex nearby.
A.
Cool.
GESH!, What a jerk!
I want a Cobra, but I'm only 18 and would crash it. Plus I wouldn't be able to afford to buy or insure it. Guess il have to stick with the Saxo.
It's a C-type Jaguar, not a Jag C.
If this is a 427 cammer engine it was capable of zero to one hundred and back to zero in 4.3 seconds.
The 427 s/c cobra can do 0-100 in 4.6 sec if the tires don,t go BANG first.
That last comment is on the right track, except for he/she missed the comment before. 0-100-0 in 4.3-6 sec. the fastest I have ever personally seen it done was in 4.8, with an OK driver.
What is the difference between a Cobra A/C and an S/C?
AC (Auto Carriers) was the name of the British company that built the car, although many people prefer to call it a Shelby Cobra. S/C stands for semi-competition and represents the more highly tuned variants. The 427 S/C being the most potent.
Thanks for the answer. There are many replica manufacturers out there. I believe I read that Carroll S. himself endorses one-my guess is that this would be the one to buy from (if I ever win the lottery one day :)
http://www.shelbydistributionusa.com/sdusacsx4000.htm.
Quote:>> "People stare all the time and everyone thinks it's a replica."<<
If you do indeed have an original, you are one very, very fortunate individual. I bet it's worth a fortune :)
Do you have a link to any pictures of 'er?
I do realize that this is an old forum/ thread, but anyhow..