Messages

Pure red and four per-cent pure yellow.

Hello Glenn (I think I too will call you this as opposed to your itchy nom de plume![:)]
   
   I have a good, non-advertised-yet lead for you in your quest for your Ace-Bristol holy Grail! Feel free to contact me at my private e-mail at-    lkent@sd43.bc.ca- (don't put the dashes)   and I can then get back to you at your e-mail.
   
   Cheerio for now,
   
   Laurence Kent (supporter of Jeremy Clarkson in his epic struggle with the snivelling BBC ninnies, who want to burn on the altar of "political correctness"!)

I am not trying to denigrate Pete Brock's design or Shelby American's strong role in the development of the Daytona coupes, but to trumpet them as "BUILT IN AMERICA", all-American heritage cars, is a bit over-the-top.  After all, it is an undisputed fact in the world of automobilia that a vehicle gets its identity from its chassis...regardless of who rebodied it. All of us on this website know who built the chassis and in what country. We also know that CSX stood for "Carroll Shelby EXPORT". I think most of us also know that a fellow called John Tojeiro in the land of Shakespeare and Newton, designed this chassis and sold the rights to AC, in Thames-Ditton, south of London.  Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the Daytona coupes' bodies, while designed by Brock, were built in Italy. While a lot of Shelby engineering and racing experience went into the Daytonas (the reinforcing bracing that made the car handle even better, etc), to just conveniently ignore its non-American antecedents is historical "revisionism".

The French car in the magazine is a "narrow hip" style big block Cobra. The real Shelby AC Cobra whose identity it is trying to coast off, is a "wide hip" version...and they just don't look alike. The French fake Cobra looks like a Kirkham to me. Why would someone restore the penultimate CSX Cobra and bring down its value by adopting an unoriginal horizontal row of toggle switches on the dash, and also change the car's configuration from wide rear wings to the narrower ones as found on an AC 289 Sports?  It tends to go the other way around, as the wide hip version allows for the really wide tyres that help the handling and also help the car from turning in the opposite direction, especially in the rain...  If you can read French, the article starts out with someone saying that the car is a replica--only to be corrected and be told that it's the genuine article. The person who uttered that it's a replica was right! It's a faux Cobra!

I used to be under the impression that MK I stood for the 260-engined cars and the first handful of 289-powered cars, that all had the worm-and-sector steering and optional flat Ace steering wheel. I thought that Mk II stood for the 289-powered cars with rack-and-pinion steering and dished steering wheels. I also thought that Mk III stood for the 427/428-powered cars with coil suspension, as well as the AC 289 of 1967-69...but who knows?...
   
           Laurence

I mentioned the TR-3 disc brakes, because it is my understanding, and I too might stand to be corrected, that that's what AC used as an optional extra for those who wanted it on their Aces and Acecas as of the late fifties. I have a factory addendum to the workshop manual, showing the layout of the at-the-time newly available, optional disc brakes, and everything does look very TR-3...but perhaps someone else could shed some further light on this.

The Aceca is looking quite spiffy! Congratulations! I agree that the colour is nice! Will you be able to resist getting those same Mk II Cobra wire wheels but in chrome?...
   
   On another front, while a standard Ford 260 does put out similar horsepower to a Ruddspeed upper-stage Zephyr motor (some 160 bhp), it is the extra torque of the 260 that will really strain the original ENV differential...so I would recommend really monitoring it carefully quite regularly...because I am afraid it might eventually snap, with some spirited driving. The Alfins will get hot and be pushed to their limits, but I think they will hold. My tweaked Bristol-powered Ace has Alfins on all four wheels, which are still quite adequate despite 180 horsepower...although it is a lighter car than a V-8-powered Aceca. Should the worse come to the worse, you could always take care of any potential braking inadequacies with a TR-3 front disc conversion.
   
   My last comment concerns the Factory 5 Cobra "replica". I am glad you moved on to the Aceca, because that kit car was not even a true replica. The body of those Factory 5 cars, like most "replicas" around, has extra inches--at least three--added to the lower part of the body, which combined with a bigger, re-worked rear wing, gives the car a bloated and pregnant look that doesn't exist on the real cars. Those extra inches under the door area also cause a need to re-radius the wheel arches to accomodate the taller, non-original profile, making the car a "Cobra-inspired" car, as opposed to the "replica" that its manufacturers would like people to believe it is.
   
                    Laurence Kent

I defer to your knowledge, rstainer. I was writing about what I remember reading some twenty years ago. Perhaps my memory got that detail wrong, or perhaps the magazine had it wrong. I thought I had read it in the short-lived Cobras magazine out of the U.S.A. in the early nineties. I did find a lot about Angliss saying Shelby had wanted him to make new "old" chassis for him, in the spring of '94 edition, page 66. A quote: "...some while ago Carroll Shelby proposed that we enter a joint venture where Autokraft was to manufacture a number of chassis and ship them out to the States as washing machine parts, or something like that. Carroll would let them gather a bit of rust and then claim that they were rediscovered, genuine 7.0 litre chassis made in the Sixties. I said 'No way',but it looks like he's gone ahead and done it".
   
   However,the article where Angliss talked about the '78 3041 car specifically has eluded my search so far. I will continue looking, and if I find it, regardless of whether it corroborates what I remember reading or not, I will post it.

I remember reading about this car in an interview Brian Angliss gave to an American magazine in the early 1990s. He said that in the 1970s Carroll Shelby had approached him about building some "old" new Mk III/427 Cobras. As many of you might know, at the time Shelby had been saying that he had a stack of original 1965 CSX "427" chassis just waiting to be given bodies. We know that this wasn't true [}:)], as Thames-Ditton never shipped such chassis to America.
   
   In 1964-65 Shelby had intended to homologate 100 Mk IIIs so as to go racing with the new Cobra in 1965, but as that didn't work out, the just over 50 cars that were shipped to him became the fabled "427 SC Semi-Competition". Based on the legend of those 100 homologation cars that only turned out to be half that number, Shelby during the '70s used to talk about one day "completing" the remainder of the run. The legend of that alleged bunch of Mk III chassis just waiting to be brought to life, was necessary so that if those cars were to ever be built, they could be made legal for the street as their chassis had supposedly been built in 1965, thus being exempt of more modern safety laws. In 1978 Brian Angliss built the car that this posting is about, and fully admitted shipping it over  to Shelby as a real 1965 car. The American authorities were not duped. It hadn't been possible to somehow bluff the car as a genuine 1965 car. According to Angliss, Shelby now wanted him to alter the original Thames-Ditton records to document and certify that the balance of the 100 envisioned homologation cars' chassis had been shipped to Shelby in 1965. When Angliss refused to do this, Shelby became angry at him, setting the stage during the late 1980s for some vitriolic attacks against Angliss, especially when the Autokraft AC Mk IV emerged. As we know, Shelby didn't give up on his "old, original" chassis scheme, and got an American Cobra restoration company in Arizona to duplicate 1965 AC chassis, down to the smallest welding details, end then exposing them to the elements to make them look old. As we also know, the Los Angeles Times and others exposed Shelby's scheme. He still managed to complete in the U.S.A. the remainder of the 100 homologation cars, but they were not legal for the street, as they were replicas that didn't meet modern safety standards. The 1978 replica this posting is about has the distinction of being the first attempt by Shelby to try and re-write the history of those envisaged 100 homologation "big block" Mk III Cobras.

Have you checked out Nisonger Instruments? They are in your country. There seem to be few Smiths gauges that they can't help people with. Good luck with your endeavours!

I have an original factory--never used--100 D-2 head gasket, from 1961. Would that do?

Getting back to the original question as to whether what we see in the picture is the real thing or not, I must say I am surprised that besides the wheels being a giveaway, no one noticed that the doors only have two holes for side curtains. All five original FIA AC Cobras had three, and I don't know of any original Mk II or II that only had two! Furthermore, the shape of the car in the back looks like a MK III 427, as though whoever made the mould, took the back of a 427 and then grafted the protrusions and tried to make the car look like some sort of FIA Mk II.

The general rule of thumb is that if you modify the car it won't lose value, as long as the modifications are of a bolt-on/bolt-off nature, and that the original parts are kept as part of the car's originality. Modifications that involve cutting and welding are best not attempted if you want to keep the car original and its value intact. I hope this helps a bit.
   
                             Laurence Kent

I just thought I would clarify something about BEX 437, as its original owner, Bob Constabaris, is no longer with us.
   
    As some of you know, my Ace, AEX 443, got BEX 437's gearbox, instruments, exhaust, badges and 100 D-2 motor (upgraded to "S" and beyond in 1960-61). The engine swap occurred in the late 1960s, once Constabaris had stopped racing his Ace and handed it over to his wife in their divorce settlement. She promptly sold it and that's when the car's "Cobratisation" with a GM 283 began.  I know this from having interviewed Constabaris on three occasions, plus I once spent the better part of a day doing research through the files of the Sports Car Club of British Columbia, which indicated that all of Constabaris' racing had been done with the original Bristol D-2 #804 motor, in racing categories E,D,C and even B! He never raced his Ace with an American V-8. Where things did get a bit confusing was as of 1968, when Constabaris acquired a single-seater racer, but kept the original racing number he had used with his Ace-Bristol. In most entries only his name and racing number are mentioned, leading one to inadvertently assume that he continued racing BEX 437 for a while--which was not the case.  Adding a bit to the confusion surrounding Constabaris' ownership of BEX 437, is that quite a few years later he bought another Ace-Bristol. He told me he had missed his original one a lot, except that this second one was never raced. He would only drive it in the streets. I can remember seeing this cream-coloured one parked outside one of his Mr. Mike's restaurants, on Granville and 70th in Vancouver. This was in the late 1970s.
   
   When I aquired AEX 443 with BEX 437's drivetrain in 1985 I knew nothing about AC prefixes. Several mechanics who saw the car's upgraded D-2 kept saying: "Wow! That's Bob Constabaris' Westwood racer". For years I thought I had his car, until gradually I started learning more and more, and doing more and more digging.  Now that BEX 437 has surfaced, my car's amalgamated double identity and history is now settled.
   
               Cheers!
   
                       Laurence Kent

I heard from Lyle Johanson today. The American Ace-Bristol owner who told me in the mid-80s that BEX 437 was in a field in Delta, British Columbia, had obviously been wrong about that car's identity...as well as the other fellow who said it was in the Eastern U.S.A.
   
   Lyle has checked his records and is now amending some of his information. He didn't obtain the car in '72 or '73, but rather in July of 1975. It had a Chevrolet 283 motor at the time, which he replaced with a Chevrolet 350 from a '72 z-28 Camaro. It is still with that motor. Also, the dashboard was replaced with a custom wooden one, with all original gauges replaced with American ones. A non-original 1970s "space-age" steering wheel with a "Cobra" emblem was added.
   
   Lyle doesn't think he will be restoring the car, but rather, possibly letting it go.
   
   I am really glad that my original call for information yielded results, and wish to thank the ACOC and all those who had a hand in bringing to light some information on this car.
   
                    Sincerely,
   
                               Laurence Kent