Another NEW CSX 427

[Trevor Legate]

Originally posted by Russ Dickey


Yeah, I know. I was just having some fun with you Englishmen. You guys are so sensitive and defensive about the whole AC/Shelby Cobra thing.

The fact remains, Carroll Shelby was the guy that inked the deal and made it all happen. AC wasn't pursuing Ford with any thoughts of building a hybrid sports car. They would have been content to slip into oblivion making wheelchairs.

Hi Russ

Just picked up on your comment. Had to laugh. And cry. When I started researching my first Cobra book ( I was forced into doing it) I found that the English side of the Cobra story could hardly care less whether Shelby, Ford or Frank Sinatra had any involvement with the car - but it was quite a different story from the American viewpoint as I soon discovered (and was warned about by people withn SAAC). The anti-AC faction were especially all-powerful on the West Coast where they were only too willing to paint the UK connection out of the story and raise CS to a deity. I found I had walked into a strange, bizarre world that was both funny and almost scary. You hear about such things but have to experience it to believe it.
I confess that I am one of those who would like the story to be told with a degree of accuracy since the American view of AC was that it made wheelchairs. As I have said before, they were an engineering company who made cars as they had accidentally inherited that part of the business when they purchased the Thames Ditton site in the 30s. They were a large engineering business that also made railway carriages, trailers, golf carts etc etc and made a good living and healthy profits. They were in the process of looking for a V8 but Shelby had first call on the new lightweight Ford engine. Would AC have come across that when it reached production? Very likely. Would they have made a car as good as the Cobra became. I doubt it!! But they would have built something like it. In my opinion, based on conversations with Derek Hurlock.