It was way back in 1961 England that a small company manufacturing specialist two door roadsters received a letter from an American racing driver called Carroll Shelby. He had a strange request, wanting to know if they could slightly adjust the production of their cars somewhat so that it could easily accept a small block V8 engine. Of course with the British being as polite as they are, they happily obliged Shelby’s request and sent him a newly customised AC Ace (as it was then called) chassis. A soon as it had arrived in the states, and before Shelby and his mechanics could finish the rest of the open bottle of whiskey, they were done fitting in the new V8 engine. It instantly became a race winner, cult classic and a brute force to be reckoned with, and the rest as they say… is history.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and today you might be lucky enough to see an AC Cobra or two roaming the streets in all of its thunderous presence. But it goes without saying that it is not anybody that can tame such an angry cloud of rolling thunder.

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