Quote:
Originally posted by Excaliber
What was "done here" was considerably more than what AC could manage to do. It took Carol Shelbys "team" to figure out how to make the car a winner. Substantial up-grades across the board were incorporated by AC at SHELBYS DIRECTION.
"AC was little more than a group of craftsman who under Shelbys direction made cars for him. LOTS of people can make cars, only a few can make successful RACE CARS. AC was not one of these people."
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I think you may have been taken in by Shelby's spin in just the way in which he intended. The AC Ace-Bristol was already a very successful race car on both sides of the Atlantic. So much so that both sets of authorities saw fit to re-class it to make it run against much tougher competition. In the late fifties it was placed in the top ten at Le Mans overall which for a 2 litre car was pretty impressive.
The majority of upgrades that Shelby laid claim to had already been performed by AC when they produced the lAce 2.6. The picture of a chassis used in Shelby's sales literature was actually not a Cobra chassis but belonged to this little known missing link.
The credit for the concept, the name, the project management and the success of the venture undoubtedly lies with CS but the Cobra is and always has been a British sports car with an American engine. It is a great combination from a joint venture, don't knock it.
To quote Derek Hurlock:
"You cannot say the AC Cobra eventually became an American design - it was always virtually the same car based on the AC Ace. But let's face it, it was Shelby who came to us with the idea"