[bobl]

Not an aerospace engineer.... nuclear physics and an MBA. Former Naval aviator so I've been exposed some to going throught the atmosphere at speed and have been in naval intelligence for quite a while....used to looking at photographs to see whats missing or not obvious.

But I've never been in any sort of machine rolling on the ground at 190MPH ... by then you had best be airborne as something real bad is getting ready to happen.

For what its worth department... We've been working on a new concept for almost 3 years. 289 body on a 427 frame (Hybrid) powered by a 4.6 DOHC 32V. A Cobras weight is 2500 +/- 300 or so. You dont need torque so much as a high winding RPM powerplant with respectable horsepower to get from here to there real quick. Check out a used 4.6L engine at 330 HP or so.....then put a blower ( a Blowzilla or a ProCharger ) at 12+ lbs of boost on it. Now you are near 500 HP with mid 400 ft lbs. of goround ( as they call it back home). Red line is around 7,000. Gear it with a 308 or a 3.27 coupled to a TKO II ( .68 - 5th ). Yowsah!! No one in their right mind should want more for the street.

You now have a low to mid 11 street car. It's really, really quick. Stick some drag radials on it and you're in the mid to upper 10s to 11 flat depending on pavement and ambient air temp. Juice it with some 110 octane and you've got an outside crack at the high 9s @ 150 something once you rework the bottom half of the engine, new rods and pistons, and pop the HP up to 600.

Unfortuantely, here is where the party for this bodystyle ends.... it will take WELL over 700 horses at the wheels and some very sneaky hooking up to push the ET's much lower. That brick for a front end just isnt very slippery any longer when getting through the air. Its that delta Y thing divided by that delta X thing. And it doesnt matter if you are at the local quarter mile track or Bonneville. You cant get there from here.

And now we have the issue of tire loading caused by the lift component. Cobras tend to want to get real light footed about this point as well. It's just not designed to go that fast on the top end.

Didnt mean to be argumentative in all of this.....and its soooooooo easy to get starry eyes about the car, but this is still a 1951 design. An F-80 shooting star at 550 MPH was then the hot dog setup. We now have bombers than are almost Mach 2 airframes. Cobras just don't often go above 160MPH. I'll grant that the BMW is much newer and has the latest engineering gee whizes....but it isnt going to go any faster than a Cobra with 10:1 LBS/HP, a moderate tendency to lift as there arent any airflow controls, and a drag coefficient only slightly better that the AC of 1951.

The members have been very discrete in saying that the AC Cobra won't do 190 and certainly not 200. IMHO, neither will the M5. Didnt mean to "bust your chops" as someone else said...

You will find that the there is NO CONTEST however to the excitement that a Cobra generates on the street. There is not a car on the planet that creates more spectator interest or excitement. Doesnt matter which replica/reproduction you get.....come join us and join the fun. We're glad you're one of us!!