The Shelby AC Cobra. 428 cubic inches of Ford V8 might, shoehorned into a car roughly the size of a small British roadster (which typically had inline four cylinders). Why was it the size of a small British roadster? Well, it originally *was* a British roadster. Carroll Shelby, brilliant visionary that he was, took one look at it, said, "We can put a V8 in that," and then proceeded to stuff the Mustang's 289 CI V8 under the hood.
Not content with that, his next venture saw the 427 Cobra Jet make its way under the hood, with the express intent of creating a "Corvette killer" (since the Thunderbird failed to do so and by the 1960s had bloated into another large car). Considering that an AC Cobra hit a top speed of 186 MPH, I'd consider it mission accomplished.
Carroll Shelby, a true American icon, and the car that made him famous...
That is all.
11 comments:
Slobber. Drool. I'll be in my bunk.
Seriously, that's my all time favorite car right there. Ferrari and the rest do not compare.
Thats just an adorable Barbie-mobile. Do they make them in Men's sizes? 'Cause I think I'd need one for each foot...
;-)
TBG
Beautiful hand crafted machines... sigh... drool...
Lee Iacocca said that every time Henry Ford II shook hands with that chicken farmer it cost Ford a million dollars, LOL!
Good on Mr. Shelby!
Meh. The 289 Hi-Po was the one that won all the races. (I have a friend who bought one of them back in '71 for $4000 and still owns it today - he hates the fact that it's worth a hundred times that today, as he can't drive it anymore! He put over 100,000 miles on it, including the run to the laundromat at times. The mind still boggles at that...)
http://youtu.be/3-JQksYxgM0
Jay, you made a typo. The 427 was in the Cobra, not the 428. By the way, the original car was the AC Ace, and the engines were small straight sixes. There were three engine choices, AC's own six, a Bristol six, or a Ruddspeed six which was a modified Ford of England six.
Al_in_Ottawa
If $ 1/2 million + real ones are out of your reach, you migh want to consider one of the locally made Factory Five Replica's ( the best of the "kit Cars" ) ..... and they are arguably better cars than the originals when they are built by someone with experience. .... and with a little searching you usually find one for ~ $35K in great condition being sold by someone who either scared himself or just wanted to do the build.
Most of the "427"s were 428s, as the so called "side oilers" were rare.
Look at the ford FE 428 which was based on the 390.
Just saying'
Libertyman, you're mostly right. My first car was a 68 XL500 fastback with the 428 Police Interceptor motor and being a horsepower crazed teenager I read everything I could about it. My engine had 352 cast into the block. The 352 of the late '50s became the 390 of the early 60s, and then was enlarged again to 427 to combat the 426Hemi and GM 427. The 427 was a racing motor only, and was tricky to manufacture, there was very little material between adjacent cylinders. To make a cheaper mass production engine the bore was reduced and a longer stroke crankshaft gave 428cid. So the 352, 390, 427 and 428 all share the same block and it is possible to swap heads, crankshafts and con-rods.
The 352, 390 and early 427s were 'top oilers', the main gallery was near the camshaft in the vee of the block and fed the cam and lifters first, then the bottom end. This starved the bottom end of oil reducing reliability in the first 427s. The 'side oiler' has the main oil gallery in the side of the casting and feeds the crankshaft first. Later 390s (64 and on, I think) later 427s and all 428s are side oilers.
By the way AC is back in business, in Europe only.
Al_in_Ottawa
Love to have a Factory Five Cobra with the new 5.0 in it...
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