Shelby Cobra History

The Cobra was the car that created Shelby American: in 1962 Carroll Shelby dropped a Ford 260-cubic-inch V8 into the lightweight British AC Ace roadster, marrying European chassis with American power. Sold in the US as the Shelby Cobra (and in Britain by AC Cars as the AC Cobra), it was produced from 1962 to 1967.

Early small-block cars used the 260 V8 (the first roughly 75 Mk1 cars) and then the dominant 289 (Mk2); these leaf-spring cars made the Cobra a giant-killer that humbled the Corvette in SCCA racing. For 1965 the much larger 427 big-block Mk3 arrived on a redesigned coil-spring chassis — a brutally fast street and competition car. In total only about 998 original Cobras were built before production ended in 1967, making them among the most valuable American collector cars.