AC Cobra The Truth Behind the Anglo-American Legend

Great book! Nice balance of text and photos - enough technical information to engage the enthusiast with sufficient narrative and color background to keep the casual reader engaged. I thought that I knew all about the AC Cobra, boy was I wrong!

Great Book !

If you’re looking for a short, compelling, and well-illustrated account of AC and the Cobra Ford, this will do nicely. I found the history of the original AC Ace particularly fascinating. The subsequent story of how AC, Carroll Shelby, and the Ford Motor Company got together is better known perhaps, but I enjoyed the author’s telling which is from an Englishman’s point of view. Whether or not it’s “the real truth behind the Anglo-American legend” is another matter, but more about that in a moment. Particularly interesting is the story of how the actual chassis was developed and how it was assembled during the AC Cobra days. I was also interested to learn that the chassis was constructed at the AC factory, while the aluminum bodies were built by several outside vendors. A good portion of the book covers the race history of the Cobras and follows the serial numbers of the cars that were raced. The problem is with the chapter entitled: “Mk II: Coil-Spring chassis and larger engine.” Here, the author takes some liberties without having spoken with the principles at Ford who designed the coil-spring suspension. He writes: “In the publicity material that Shelby produced for the new model great play is made of the almost revolutionary sounding chassis, with the suspension completely designed at Ford using its state-of-the art computer, with a good deal of input from Ford suspension wizard Klaus Arning. Computers at that time were most certainly not what they are today and Ford’s lumbering dinosaur, as it would appear today, would most certainly not have waved a magic wand over design proceedings as suggested.”No, indeed. But if the author had spoken with Chuck Carrig who wrote the computer program in 1963, or knew anything about Klaus Arning’s patented suspension, or of Bob Negstad who converted Arning’s ideas into hardware, he would have known how Arning's suspension was mated to the AC frame. The details are covered in two articles in RACECAR ENGINEERING. The first, published in the October 2007 issue, entitled “The Program Maker,” is about math wiz Chuck Carrig, the computer program he wrote, and how it actually worked. The Ford computer did not design suspensions, but it did calculate suspension geometry. It’s very first application was the Ford GT 40, two years ahead of the Cobra Mk II. The second story, published in the October 2008 issue, entitled “Independent Thinker,” is about Klaus Arning and the suspensions he design for the original Mustang I prototype, the Ford GT40 (Marks I thru IV), the proposed independent rear suspension for the production Mustang, A.J. Foyt’s Indy Coyotes, and, yes, the Cobra Mk II. How was it done? With Ford engineer Bob Negstad stationed at the AC factory in England, exchanging data with Arning at Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. It wasn’t easy getting Arning’s advanced suspension to fit AC’s primitive frame, but through their trans-Atlantic connection, and output from Ford’s computer, they got the job done. I know. I researched and wrote both stories for RACECAR ENGINEER. Four stars.

I have ( as usual ) been putting a review of this book shall we say on the back burner. For the pure Cobra lover I recommend it for your collection. It has a lot of great photos , a little bit of trivia with down-sized posters , sales promotion posters , etc. Good reading in the different chapters , " Interesting " ! Even an AC factory Cobra chassis history along with photos of original factory memorabilia , emblems , lighters , etc. A fine little book for the purist. I do review it often. I think if a person is a serious collector of Cobra books the book will be an enjoyable book & asset to your collection. I'll rate the book at FIVE STARS - Well done " Rinsey " !

Nice edition