Shelby little involvement in creating the Cobra

[Brooklyn-427]

What alot of people forget is AC could of contracted any number of engineers to carry out similar work to what Shelbys cailfornia hotrodders done. England was filled with talented guys who had cut there heels on racing Bentleys Aston Martins and such like.

Ken Miles wasnt the only tea drinking English Knight with super skills that Shelby could of hooked up with back in them days. He was another string to the Shelby bow at that time....

Im not trying to re write history im just saying what alot of the Brits here sometimes touch on but fail to fully engage with. There is alot of underline things that got over looked in the grand story of this.
Its somewhat a single sided story sometimes on a double edged sword.

[HealeyRick]

Originally Posted by Trevor Legate

It could have also been applied to the Austin Healey 3000 had Donald Healey liked the idea, or a Jensen or an Aston Martin. It just happened to be an AC. Fortunately.....

The Healey involvement with Shelby's plan is pretty well known. Shelby came to Donald Healey with a proposal to put Chevrolet motors into the Healey 3000. Shelby had been a Healey factory driver and they were well known to each other. Donald was no stranger to V8 power and swapped a Chevy V8 into his personal Jensen 541 and favored Shelbys proposal and was willing to provide Shelby with a Healey chassis. It was Austin, not Donald Healey that nixed the idea. Word is too, that Chevrolet had no interest in providing motors to power a car that would be a likely Corvette killer.

Originally Posted by Brooklyn-427

Healey`s fait had been sealed with the tie in with Austin, unfortunately as history speaks before us Bristish Leyland killed them off otherwise a Rover V8 engined 3000 would of been the future for that car.

Most of the reason Healey died was the implementation of the US safety and emission standards. According to Donald Healey in his autobiography, there was no way the 3000 could meet the side impact standards nor could a catalytic converter be added under the terribly low-slung Healey chassis. Nevertheless, if Healey continued, they would have used the 3 liter 6 cylinder Austin Princess motor built by Rolls Royce. Three of these prototypes were built and are known as Rolls-Healeys or Healey 4000s. Austin had developed a twin cam head for the motor, which Healey really wanted to get their hands on. But it was Lord Stokes, head of Leyland, that was hot to rid himself of Healey and MG in favor of Triumph, which he used to head. MG continued on and came out with the MGC as a replacement for the Healey, although the 6 cylinder C motor was not based on the Healey motor as some think. It's interesting to note that despite the availability of the Buick-Olds-Rover motor, it took the independent work of Ken Costello putting them into MGBs to drag MG into eventually offering their own factory version in 1973.

[REAL 1]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn-427

What alot of people forget is AC could of contracted any number of engineers to carry out similar work to what Shelbys cailfornia hotrodders done. England was filled with talented guys who had cut there heels on racing Bentleys Aston Martins and such like.

Ken Miles wasnt the only tea drinking English Knight with super skills that Shelby could of hooked up with back in them days. He was another string to the Shelby bow at that time....

Im not trying to re write history im just saying what alot of the Brits here sometimes touch on but fail to fully engage with. There is alot of underline things that got over looked in the grand story of this.
Its somewhat a single sided story sometimes on a double edged sword.

First why do you post 4 times to continue a train of thought? (if that is one train of thought).

Why is it in any way relevant as to what AC could of/might have/should have done? We are talking what was done. You know...if I had wheels I'd have been a race car. Part of the magic of the Shelby story is that it wasn't a car company with millions and years of experience in manufacturing and design or backed by or receiving money from any government that created a world beater.... it is the fact that it was just a bunch of American "Hot Rodders" who accomplished what they did and created one of the most iconic cars of all time.

Yes, there were other talented English drivers in that period of time. And your point is?????????

You're a Brit? Really???? I envisioned you sitting next to a moonshine Still in the hills of Kentucky chew'n some tabbackky. .