Customer Reviews

AC Cobra: The Complete Story

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This is a great book if you love the subject, but it gets tedious at times. Good information about the heroes and the villains (Ferrari), especially the early days with Carroll Shelby. However, the endless recital of race results gets boring. Only one chapter about the Daytona Coupe. Wraps-up nicely with a "where are they now" section. I would have liked more about the races and the drivers who built the Cobra legend. Still, if you love Cobras and like to drool over pictures of the original cars, this book is for you.

I loved this book! Ok, so I'm a diehard Cobra enthusiast, but I found the details of AC Cars' history to be fascinating. There are also excellent details about Carroll Shelby and how the deal came together between Ford, AC Cars, and his own fledgling company, Shelby American.

The perspective is more from the British side than that of most other Cobra books I've read, which tend to focus on the American side. As a result, there are fascinating details which were new to me, such as the fact that the AC Ace chassis was based on a sports racing car design by John Tojeiro, and this was the chassis which was used for the 289 series of Cobras. And that the Ace's Bristol engine was based on a prewar BMW design, whose tooling and drawings were handed over to the British as part of WWI reparations.

Also, AC continued making Cobras after Shelby went out of the Cobra business, and there were some 30 Cobras built for the European market with the 427's coil-spring chassis - and sexy body - but with the small-block 289 engine ... much like the replica my brother and I built last summer!

Great stuff! I only wish there had been more pictures.

Brian Laban kwon very well the story of Carroll Shelby and of course AC COBRA. Many details and wonderful pictures in this book one of my preferred. If you like sports car you will be enjoy with this book.

The book is very complete. I will need to read it again to absorb more of the information contained in it.