Britain's "remarkable automotive cottage industry"

[Excaliber]

Ford didn't just "give" the GT-40 project to Shelby. They came wiht their hat in their hand and practially begged him to "FIX" it.

As I understand the problem, Ford had made the car to complicated with all kinds of "plumbing" and "wiring" and stuff that "broke".

Shelby, being the master of simplicity and less is more, simply removed all the garbage and then Ford had a winning car!

Ernie

[Cal Metal]

What'sa Cobra:

Not even close. No winning GT 40 without Phil Remington. Game, set and match.

[Trevor Legate]

It was definately Phil Remington who got the tin snips and club hammer out and made the GT40 work, as Mr.Shelby will confirm. The GT40 was also given to Holman Moody to make sure each team concentrated on the task in hand but no HM car even won a championship round as they insisted on using drivers who had little knowledge of European road circuits.

To hark back to an earlier post - I really think AC did just a little bit more than just wheel out an Ace chassis and then bu..er off to build invalid carriages. The cars arrived at SA requiring only engine, box, battery and wheels to be fitted, so they built quite a lot of the car. Lets call it 50/50......the first Cobra to be entered in a race outside the USA was the AC entry for the 63 Le Mans. Carroll Shelby "observed" but kept away from the project. It finished 7th, won its class and was only headed by Ferraris. They also sold AC Cobra road cars to all markets outside the USA, with full approval from their 2 other partners. The first Shelby advertising literature pay full credit to the "union" of British craftsmanship and American power. The second lot of advertising did not. Strange.......

I dare not mention the fact that the "World Championship" was won by the Alan Mann team (apart from Daytona & Sebring) and that CS never attended a race, not even when they won the title in Rheims. (There was a reason for that). Nor shall we discuss how it was a class win against only privateers, with Ferrari being equally dominant in the Protoype category.
Anyhow, I am always delighted to confirm that the Cobra was a successful joint effort.

[nikbj68]

....And where were the GT 40`s built?

Just wondering if there was any amount of breakages in customer 'street' Cobras in the very early days, or was it just under racing conditions? (Hey, it looks like a nice little 'Brit-pack' getting going here, eh Wilf,Den & MR. Legate......should I call you SIR?)

[rdorman]

I think if you ask CS he would say he had a hand in electricity!

OH the stories I have heard about his chili cook offs! Some 'juicy' stuff there!

Who started the kit car industry? Wasn't most automobile production in the begining much like kit cars? You got a chassis from the manufacturer and then took it to a coach works company for body and interior. Very kit car like don't you think?

Don't mind Evan 'keeper of the faith' Real1. He is very set in his beleifs. Not a thing wrong with a man with convictions. What is that saying about an 'old dog' Just wouldn't be the same place without him.

Glad to see more Brits on the site. Some heathly 'across the pond' ball busting can be a lot of fun! Any of you chaps have an 'in' to Hawk Engineering? I need one of their front suspensions.

Rick

[nikbj68]

I know Fritz Phillips posts here, He is Hawk`s Euro agent, and you could try the Kirkhams, as Gerry 'Hawk'ridge is their UK agent.
I love it here, so many different views, opinions, facts, All served in a big chillied bun! ]
I still feel too much of a newb to start cat-fight-mud-slinging like some folk do here, I know it`s (mostly) in fun, but I like people to know where I`m coming from rather than wish I`d stayed there!

[Cal Metal]

Niki bj:

You are correct. You have to love the international flavor of this particular thread, and I thank our British breathren for their input, insights, and opinions. This has been a lively discussion with some great banter. Unlike some of the past threads, the vitriol is absent here. Lets keep it that way.

[REAL 1]

Trevor: Thanks for the info.

What is your take on the creation of the 427. Do you agree it was more "Shelby" than "AC" in its creation, design, testing and development. The 289 clearly had more "AC" in it as far as the forgoing stages went than the 427. Do you agree?

Didn't the 289 receive some modifcations/improvements in suspension, steering and brakes as a result of CS and SAI? Didn't the FIA car receive some substantial buttressing and improvements over the basic Ace set up?

Would you agree that it was Shelby who was the central figure that made the Cobra the automotive icon? Not taking away from AC's contribution just making my observations.

Thanks.

[computerworks]

Originally posted by Cal Metal


....Lets keep it that way.

I will make sure......

Ron
ClubCobra Moderator

[nikbj68]

Originally posted by REAL 1


.... Not taking away from AC's contribution just making my observations.

WOOHOOOOOO!!!! I see that as the first step REAL!!!! We`ll make an Anglophile of you yet!!!

[rdorman]

Originally posted by nikbj68


I know Fritz Phillips posts here, He is Hawk`s Euro agent, and you could try the Kirkhams, as Gerry 'Hawk'ridge is their UK agent.
I love it here, so many different views, opinions, facts, All served in a big chillied bun! ]
I still feel too much of a newb to start cat-fight-mud-slinging like some folk do here, I know it`s (mostly) in fun, but I like people to know where I`m coming from rather than wish I`d stayed there!

THANKS! I completely forgot about Hawk being the UK Kirkham dealer.

Fritz, Dave, Tom........ you guys out there? Can I get a deal on the Hawk MGB front suspension?

Rick

[REAL 1]

nikbj68: Don't get me wrong. AC does have a storied past and I respect that. They also had the missing peice CS was looking for at the right time and the right place. I give AC credit for having the basic chasis and beautiful body shape that we all know and recognize instantly today as a Cobra. I do recognzie their contribution. Without AC the Cobra as we know and love it would not exist. Probably anyway.

AC as I see provided the earthly or physical platform with which CS and his talented crew, engineers, mechanics and drivers worked majic and transformed it beyond, way beyond what it started out as. It was Shelby, in my eyes anyway that transformed a little sports car into an icon.

Kinda like Cinderella. Same basic girl but WOW! much different after that wave of the wand. But for that wave of the wand we'd be asking "so who the hell is this Cinderella chick? He didn't stop there. He also thought of, created, designed a Cinderella with a Dolly Parton bust line i.e. the 427.

Shelby was that magic wand.

My view. Just seeing what Trevors take is on it.

[Cal Metal]

Trevor:

Not only the snips but the BRAKES. That car was like a truck, coming in at 2,600 lbs. Huge, huge problem. Phil once told me that it was one of the most challengening obstacles he had encountered, given the weight and the cycle times of braking from 200 mph on down.

As Leo Levine once said in his book, Ford, the Dust and the Glory: A Racing History, "If Phil Remington is a mechanic, than 98% of people who call themselves mechanics are true imposters".

[What'saCobra?]

Henry II considered Shelby a hired hand in the Le Mans effort. The idea, money and drive to crush the opposition, Ferrari, Shel's old nemesis, were from Henry.

But, Shel's team won Le Mans with someone elses car and money, which surely did include Remmington's ethic that less is more, do it right the first time and either lead, follow or get out of the way. And the best drivers in the world, bot and paid for with Henry's money, several who never drove for CS again.

And I think that hireling opinion rather aptly expresses CS's and some of his syncophantic idolateurs current opinion of Pete Brock and others who were so essential to the old man's corporate success. Nice talented guys, but just hirelings doing my bidding in my company with my resources and my creative ideas.

We might recall that CS was removed with high drama from the Viper program for excess interference with the corporate goals, which were quite successfully completed without him, thank you very much. The Viper remains a remarkable street and racing success against Porche and Corvette, while also retaining large percentages of their initial prices. That certainly never happened to the Cobra until long after Shel was retired and grumpy about how much people appreciated the several continuation kits that appeared.

A balanced and fair perspective is found in these pages. Club Cobra is the rare forum for an honest look both backwards and forwards regarding the toys and men that we most admire and thank for their courage, insight and performance.

Emotional advocacy is clearly welcomed along with both a grain or two of salt, an even spirit, a fair memory and a good library.

"Either for Tragedy, Comedy, History"
Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

[Cal Metal]

What'saCobra:

Paragraph three is perfectly on point. The Brock situation today is a tragedy, but, I guess, no surprise.

[REAL 1]

Whatsacobra: Agreed with regard to the apparent opinion distilled from the above post that "no man is an island". But without one man's talent and vision and drive the others who were as you describe just "hirelings" and who no doubt helped make it happen all probably would have been doing other things during the relevant time periods as opposed to making Cobra and GT 40 history.

It was Shelby who brought in the "right" people such as Brock, Remington, Miles, Ohlsen and all the others who made the Cobra, Daytona and GT40 "happen". Without Shelbys success with the Cobra and the fact he made them an icon in their own time and the fact he knew how to "win" I'm sure had something to do with Ford picking Shelby and his band of merry men to make the GT40 a winner.

That man with the vision, talent and drive and chuztpa (to borrow a yiddish phrase) was Shelby. Without him none of it would have happened or happened the way we know it.

I see this as unassailable.

[Trevor Legate]

Coo wot a lotta replies in a short space of time - sorry I was writing a Cobra book (great excuse!) but back to the task in hand....
In answer to REAL1 & CalMetal- Yes I agree 100% with everything you just posted. The 427 was pure Americana, would never, ever have been thought of over here, guaranteed. And so, in many ways, was the 289 Cobra. I think the Ace could, just maybe, have ended up with a V8 but the development would have been crap. I watched the progress of the AC 3000ME and it was painful to say the least. Shelbys boys would have had it sorted overnight - took about 7 years over here and it never was right (but still under-rated). AC had some good people but they moved at a different pace, a bit like Derek Hurlock. Lovely man, a true British gentleman, but he belonged to a different era. People like him would be chewed up and spat out if they tried to run a car company today, more's the pity.
The "AC Ace V8" might have been fun but scary. (Actually, to be accurate, all the first 75 cars were titled "AC Ace-Cobra" in the factory registry but the Ace bit got kinda dropped by CS.) All the feedback to jolly old Thames Ditton came via Ken Miles, Remington & co to get the twisty, bendy old thing to go and stop. Sort of. Somewhere amongst my tons of paperwork I have an American magazine interview with CS during the 1970s. He said he was glad to see the back of the goddam things with their ol' buggy springs - never did work proper, etc etc......then they came back and started making MUNNY! Which takes us onto a quite different topic........
But obviously, the whole Cobra project was Shelbys idea - he had been trying to get the thing off the ground for years, years before he stopped racing. Had Donald Healey been up for a laugh, we would now be celebrating the "Austin Healey Cobra 3000". Maybe. Or the Aston Martin equivalent. Or the Corvette (and so on)
One of the reasons Brian Angliss (sorry) got in a huff with CS was that he considered that every rolling chassis that left the factory in the 60's was carrying an AC chassis number, so they were AC's, but it was no problem to have them sold 6000 miles away as Shelby Cobras if thats what it took to move them on. Shelby American never added a chassis number to any car. Nor did they pay for any (Ford Motor Credit did) nor did they carry public liability insurance (AC did). And so on.
The 427 was built purely for the US market but the instructions were interpreted by Alan Turner. He was the first person I talked to when I began writing the first book and he could not recall too many visits from anyone from SA. Remington would drop by en route to European races, but that was about it.

To; rdorman;
Fire off a message to Gerry Hawkridge and tell him I sent you. He's your man for just about anything Cobra and knows more about the greasy bits than most so-called experts. Daft as a brush but a luvverly man with it!! I confess that he lives/works/drinks not far from me and I spend too much time under his feet drinking his tea but he is the fount of all knowledge. (Why do you think AC Cars survived the tough times? Jimmy Price was not the only person to suffer from the recent farce)
Hawk Cars are a great source of Cobra bits and Gerry now owns a pukka AC427MkIII, a Kirkham FIA, plus a 289 under construction. Plus other things. Also in his little showroom is a Kirkham 427 painted black with twin white stripes and black side pipes. Nice.
Sorry for the long rambling postings, but I can bore for England when I get onto the subject of Cobra history.
Cheers

[Trevor Legate]

Originally posted by nikbj68


(Hey, it looks like a nice little 'Brit-pack' getting going here, eh Wilf,Den & MR. Legate......should I call you SIR?) )[/b]

Oh yes, feel free to call me Sir - nobody else does.

Not sure if any Cobras were written off over here in road accidents. You may recall the late David Purley totalling his car one foggy November at Paddock Hill bend, Brands Hatch. He told me that he cut it up and threw it in a skip. I told him that it climbed out again and restored itself......you just can't keep a good Cobra down!!!

[snakeeyes]

Cal, re: the lack of vitriol...wasn't "Vitriol" the hair tonic that CS patented back in the 60's?

Trevor, Mr. Legate, SIR, welcome to the forum and thank you for your input. I've made your books a part of my library for years and it's nice to see an intellectual type occasionally interrupt our mindless banter here with real insight...

[Cal Metal]

Snakeeyes:

Could be. Used exclusively by Jay Sebring with the patent "expiring" in 1969, I believe...........................