In the 1960’s, the name AC became synonymous with the Shelby Cobra, the most brutish car you could buy for general use. The Cobra started out as an ordinary English sports car but was transformed when a Ford V8 replaced the six-cylinder Bristol engine. Safety regulations that came into force in 1968 almost killed off the car.
AC cars Ltd. was no longer producing sports cars, but rights to manufacture the Cobra were sold to a company called Autokraft and reintroduced the Cobra as the AC Mark IV, since Ford owned the Cobra name. Strictly speaking, the last version of the original Cobra was officially called the AC Mark III. The Autokraft version was a real revival of the old Cobra, although it was modified in many ways. It was built using the original chassis jigs and body bucks, and the complete body was handmade from aluminum the same way as the Cobra.
The Ford Motor Co was extremely helpful in getting the car certified so that it could be sold legally in the United States. It was powered by the contemporary 302 cu in Ford V8, which produced 210-hp, considerably less than the 271 to 485 hp of the original Cobras, though still enough to give the car a top speed of about 140 mph, and a 0-60-mph time of around 6 seconds.
Autokraft sold the car through selected U.S. Ford dealers for $39,950.
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