Talk:AC Cobra

message: I've given plenty of time for a rebuttal to my earlier comments. Getting to the point. It's a volatile issue, but any references to an 'AC Cobra' in this thread needs to be changed to 'Shelby Cobra' or 'Shelby American Cobra'. Shelby American is the lawful manufacturer of record for these cars, and this was decided in a court of law when Brian Angliss...then owner of the old Auto Carrier company....signed a document conceding that this was indeed the case. The fact that these cars were both sold and titled with Shelby American VIN numbers, and that a Shelby American facility was the site of final assembly for all of the original Cobras, should have told us this without the need for litigation but the court agreement makes it rock solid. If anybody can find a more compelling reference regarding the manufacturer of record for these cars I'll be glad to entertain it, otherwise I'm going to properly reference the court's findings and change the page.Syr74 (talk) 15:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh rubbish. The cars were assembled as rolling vehicles at AC. All Shelby did was fit the engines to the ones shipped to the USA and, for the MkIII, paint them. All the RHD cars and the LHD ones that didn't go to the USA were entirely built by AC. As for the "lawful manufacturer of record," who cares? The car was an AC design built in the AC factory, and none of Shelby's dubious claims can affect that. The manufacturer of a car is not determined by an American court; it's determined by whose factory it came out of, and in the case of the Cobra that was the AC plant at Thames Ditton. The fact that they had a Cobra badge at the front and an AC one at the back should have told us this without need for litigation...--FergusM1970Let's play Freckles 02:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

text: By this logic all current AC Cobras should be called Hightec Cobras as they are the supplier of these vehicles. Infact High tec even fit the engine and gear box unlike Shelby American who completed production of the vehicle and registered the VIN at Shelby American in California. Shelby ordered rolling bodys from AC Cars for their Cobra vehicle 90% of which were marketed and sold in North American under CSX the remainder were sold abroad under CSB .  With regards "lawful manufacturer of record" this is indeed the most important point which firmly makes the case for change of page name. Otherwise every single supplier for every single automotive component on the planet can claim a vehicle they supply to is infact their vehicle. This could see the laughable emergence of the Bosch Gullwing or the Fiat 250 GTO or Continental DB9 simply because they provided critical component. in 1993 AC Cars and Shelby released a joint press release making it clear that FIA and SCCA establish Shelby as the manufacturer of record for from 1962 - 1966 this is the final case for the change of name on this.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by CarHistory2020 (talk • contribs) 09:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

text: The 427 Cobra is an AC design with computer assistance from Ford, and all the cars were built by AC in the UK. The court case - for which I can't find a reference anywhere - only refers, apparenttly, to the Cobras sold in the USA. In any case I don't believe it's relevant, because the declaration of a local court in California about who is the "legal manufacturer of record" has little to do with who actually manufactured the cars, which I would suggest has a lot more to do with whose factory they were built in than the opinions of some ambulance chaser, and that was AC. I believe that it's you who is driven by emotion here. Before editing the article again to say that Shelby built the cars can you please show some evidence that they were built in California and not Surrey?--FergusM1970Let's play Freckles 09:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A 1963 advertisement for the "A.C. Cobra", from an issue of Autocar here:   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 17:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be noted that this is as advertised by Auto Carrier, not by Shelby American. This is an even more interesting part of the story because, according to D. Freidman's book and other sources, Shelby had made a gentleman's agreement with Auto Carrier to use the name of both companies names in print and on the car in Europe, the U.S., and the UK. Initially Shelby complied by labeling American cars as Shelby-AC Cobra, but Auto Carrier did not comply either on the cars they finished or in print, so Shelby retaliated in many ways including removing AC from the badges and the names of smallblock-powered cars in America when new emblems were developed, forcing Auto Carrier to stop applying Cobra badges to small-block powered cars they completed(Shelby American owned the Cobra trademark), and never allowing AC to apply Cobra badges to AC MkIV series cars as well as granting them effectively no big-block powered cars to be sold in the UK (most people don't seem to know that almost every big-block powered car was a Shelby American Cobra finished in California and destined for the American market, not an AC-badged Mk IV). We need to get several editors involved here because, while Auto Carrier is an important part of the story, the term AC Cobra is literally the colloquialism in this case, and not really a legitimate name for this car when referencing actual, professional sources. Syr74 (talk) 20:35, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

text: To be clear, Carroll Shelby never manufactured a single Cobra except for the short run of early-1990s McCluskey-chassis 427 'continuations', in fact replicas (produced simply to exploit the silly-money resale prices of original AC 427s), which for a time he pretended were genuine 1965 AC cars until legally forced to admit otherwise. Because Cobras were originally marketed as 'Shelby Cobras' in the US (the main market), Americans often imagine that Shelby manufactured them, but he did not. He just dropped the engines in. Nor did he design the revised chassis for the big-block 427. He proposed it, but AC and Ford did the actual job of design and AC did the manufacturing. And the 427 wasn't a very good car anyway. It handled like a shopping trolley on acid and it didn't sell. Its failure to sell was the reason why Shelby was able to assign unregistered chassis numbers to his 1990s 'continuations'. His original idea, to drop the Corvette engine into the Big Healey, would have produced a much better and more useable car than the Cobra (as we know from actual Healey-Chev conversions carried out by individual owners and mechanics in Britain and the US), which would have sold much better, and there was the rub. Neither Chevrolet, nor British Motor Corporation, nor Donald Healey wanted Shelby biting chunks out of their market. They preferred to keep selling stock Corvettes and Austin-Healey 3000s, thank you very much. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Shelby Cobra

message: I took this picture 2 days ago but i dont know how to put it up (or who to check with to see if it could be useful for the article). If anybody could help me out, it would be great. Here is the link http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/526/img2314hq5.jpg Sorry about the trouble, im pretty much new to this.
:go to here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload Gzuckier 20:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: This bit seems a bit suspicious, it sounds almost like Kirkham added it themselves. I mean if these replicas are supposed to be good then fine, but it doesn't need to go on about it quite so much, and there are many more high quality replicas too, not just Kirkham.--Santahul 16:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kirkham Motorsports 

message: This article is becoming perverted by a continuing effort to promote the advertising interests of Kirkham, who are only one of a large number of Cobra replica suppliers.  The text used has been highly distorted and has actively disparaged all other replica manufacturers, some of whom produce very high quality products.  In any case Cobra replicas are not a relevant topic in this article anyhow.  If replicas are to be dealt with it should be in a fair and comprehensive treatment.  As for the right to describe a car as a Cobra it should be pointed out that the rights to the Cobra name and logo ultimately rests with Ford, and in 1987 Ford granted AC Cars under Brian Angliss the right to the name and logo in all countries but the USA, withholding the USA rights.   Ford by 1987 had a controlling interest in AC Cars Ltd.  Both Shelby and AC Cars products  in the 80’s and 90’s both warrant the name Cobra, from a historic as well as a legal perspective. 
Howie770 19:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cobra Replica Distortions 

message: Hasn't there been talk of the Cobra going back into production, with an updated appearance? http://www.pistonheads.com/Ginetta/default.asp?storyId=17208 <-- This one seems to be bandied about the most often. --98.232.188.173 (talk) 07:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Possibly going back into production?

message: This was the (UK) registration number of a twin-turbocharged 1967 427 good for about 700 bhp, which used to belong to Hertfordshire classic car dealer Rod Leach and appears to have been sold at auction in 1998.  It was on display in HR Owen in South Kensington for a while when I was a Penniless Student Oaf in the early 80s.  Anyone got any more info, as all I could glean from Leach's adverts in long-gone magazine "Supercar Classics" that it was up for sale at the time when the bottom dropped out of the classic car market in the early 90s.Mr Larrington (talk) 15:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: "COB 1"

message: I'm puzzled by the section heading "Coupes or Coupé". There seems no need to highlight the alternative spellings in this way -- unless the issue is of notable significance to the subject, which seems not to be the case since it is not even mentioned in the main text. I also don't understand the plural ("Coupes") versus singular (Coupé) distinction. I would normally just change it to, say "Coupés", but I'm wondering if I'm missing some point. 81.157.197.168 (talk) 00:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Coupes or Coupé" 

message: This is actually a picture of an AC Ace.  The car that preceeded the Cobra.  The picture should be removed, or clarified that it is the car that AC constructed prior to the AC/Shelby Cobra.  (Not sure how to edit pictures at this point in time.)  TwoManyMinis (talk) 01:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture of AC Cobra Mk 1. 

message: Someone added that Peter Brock (designer of the Cobra Coupe) was killed in a race in Australia in 2006.  The Aussie racer Peter Brock was a different person.  Check the disambiguation list, there are two Peter Brocks involed with cars and racing. 
The Peter Brock involved with Shelby is happily still alive.
Whoever added that to this entry was very careless...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bassetman4 (talk • contribs) 17:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peter Brock... 

message: I apologize, I'm new to editing Wikipedia and I'm not sure if this is the correct way to point this out, but I noticed an inaccuracy on one of the pages but hesitated to delete the fact altogether.  Thus, I am making a note of it here.
The Quote:
The Cobra was perhaps too successful as a performance car and reputedly contributed to the implementation of national speed limits in the United Kingdom. An AC Cobra Coupe was calculated to have done 186 mph (299 km/h) on the M1 motorway in 1964, driven by Jack Sears and Peter Bolton during shakedown tests prior to that year's Le Mans 24h race.[6]
The Inaccuracy:
I looked up the source which refers to a different car, albeit one derived from the AC Cobra Cope.  Specifically, the car referred to by citation #6 is the Shelby Daytona Coupe.  The AC Cobra Coupe was drag limited to a much lower speed, but my cursory search for a source on this turned up nothing.  Nevertheless, the fact above misrepresents which car reached 186. 
WRXspec (talk) 21:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect Fact 

message: The book AC Cobra by Rinsey Mills  contains a comprehensive list of AC Cobra chassis numbers.  This list does not designate the original leaf spring chassis as Mark anything (Speculation that Mark I is a retronym, since it was not used until production of the next generation began.)  Two of the original series, chassis numbers CSX 2701 and CSX 2702 became the first two Mark II chassis with the coil spring suspension and the 427 engine.  These chassis were renumbered CSX 3001 and CSX 3002.   This book designates the Coil spring chassis as Mark II (pg 118 and pg 152.)   Nowhere in this book have I encountered a reference to a "Mark III"   I am reticent to make such extensive modifications to the article without additional citations but I am confident that there was not a Mark III Shelby Cobra.    
Qwy47 (talk) 08:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mark I, Mark II and Mark III 

message: I am taking the "AC" out of Ford/Shelby for now. I don't recall "AC" ever being used, outside of it's history. We (US) had Austin-Healy, MG, and Triumph, but nobody had ever heard of AC, before or since. I doubt that Ford ever advertised it as AC.
This has nothing to do with who designed/built/assembled it, only who got credit for it here. Sammy D III (talk) 17:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taking AC out of the US. 

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