The word... SLABSIDE

[riverside]

Did this term originate in America or England and was it only used for the 289 cobra ( when the flares became more pronounced) or did it start with the first 260?  or any other cars?
   I have also heard many owners of originals take exception
   to the word preferring  street or roadster claiming nothing square about their car.
   The urban Texas dictionary defines slab thus:
   Slab stands for Slow Low And Bangin'. mainly used in the south!

[nikbj68]

I§ve always assumed it was an Americanism, that was introduced after the 427 came along, for those who wouldn§t understand the difference between the terms 289, 427 MkII or MkIII to differentiate!

[rr64]

The first I recall it was in the 1990s when the American based replica builders,  owners, and their fans started using the term in their slang.
   
   1962-1965 you will find all kinds of names in print using one word or combinations of words in different orders that picked up on Shelby, AC Cars, Ford, and Cobra.  The name Cobra seemed to be understood universally but as soon as the first specification change in chassis came about anyone requiring parts either from Shelby or AC needed to know the chassis number of what they were working on to get the correct replacement parts.  The need to know your chassis number developed very early but it was still just a Cobra.
   
   The confusion in the U.S.A. seemed to start when the first word on the new car got out in public. The new car, the car people call either a 427 Cobra or Cobra 427 these days hit the early Shelby parts book  (dated January 15, 1965) list as the Cobra II model. That parts book then called all the old cars (leaf spring cars) Cobra I models. Parts for street and race cars were itemized.  Legend says that Mr. Shelby didn't like the Cobra I and II designations so they were eliminated.  (The magnesium racing wheels designed and produced specifically for 427 Cobras are marked "COBRA II".) The December 23, 1966 parts book says, "Model Number = Model 1 in the Cobra series indicates the Cobra 289, produced 1963 to 1965."  A few lines down is says, "Model 2 in the Cobra series indicates the Cobra 427 produced in 1966." Throughout the rest of the book the terms 289 Cobra and Cobra 289 are both used interchangeably.  That is the earliest text that I personally have with the newly coined "289 Cobra" name in it.  The last new Cobra was history before this book was printed, old car with new name.
   
   My point, none really other than that many names exist today that all came after the last new leaf spring car was completed.  Every few years somebody coins a new name for reasons only they know and that just adds to the confusion.
   
   It use to be that if one owned a Cobra that was self explanatory. Once the flood of looks something like AC Cars made and replica* makers and their products exploded into the world more modifiers were required.  Some tried "real Cobra" for a Shelby-AC-Ford product but the replica builders, owners, and fans cried foul. Their cars were just as "real" in the sense that they existed in physical form.  The term "original Cobra" developed to mean a car that was a Shelby-AC-Ford product. That more or less became ineffective because of the entangled connections between all the parties playing in the recreation/continuation/whatever cars in the last two decades plus.  Now I find I have to say that "I have a car made under the co-operative efforts of Shelby American, AC Cars, and Ford Motor Company in the first quarter of 1964.........." for people to understand it is not any one of dozens of other possibilities.  One of the descriptions that gets laughs is one a friend offers for his CSX25XX car. He drives it to many events. Almost no one asks if it is a car 'original'. A few will recognize what it. If someone asks if it is a kit. His answer is yes. If they ask what kind says it was an AC kit assembled by Shelby. He tells me the most common response is something like 'oh' and the clueless questioners walk away.
   
   
   * The vast majority on non-Cobras/427 Cobras are not actually replicas of anything. Facsimile or characturization might be more accurate descriptive modifiers. There are some cars that could accurately be called replicas. I have seen a very small number that the builders took great care in mimicking original parts, materials, and methods with. The majority tens of thousands are just something that looks generally like 1960s car.  The typical modern creation is done by people that do not like or do not want an original 1960s car.  The common things they want different are usually (but not limited to)chassis design, suspensions, engines, transmissions, wider track,  longer wheel base, different brakes,  tougher body, body that super wide wheels and tires will go under, cooler cockpits, easy to find parts, and cheap parts. Hmmm, they like the general look of the old cars and the fame attached to them but they really don't like the original cars. It's like the person you wish to date saying 'sure, I like you but before I go out with you, you must dye your hair, change the cut, get different clothes, loose 20 pounds, get those teeth straighter/whiter/whatever, AND go get a better job so you can spend more on me first'. They just said they didn't like you. Before you get real excited, I have met modern car owners and or builders that love the old cars they just can't afford them. To me they seem to be the very small minority of modern car builders and owners. The market serves the majority. I know a person that owns a CSX24XX car AND a more modern looks something like a 427 Cobra car. He likes both for different reasons.

[rstainer]

Dan, with his profound Cobra knowledge, is bang on the money; the Cobra I and Cobra II European equivalents were the Mk I Cobra (leaf spring cars) and Mk II Cobra (coil spring cars).
   
   The first ACOC record of AC using Mk II the 1964 Factory Ledger (aka The Bible) at the start of coil spring 427 production; the first record of Mk I is an AC 289 Sports brochure (undated, probably 1966):
   

"The chassis and suspension of the AC 289 Sports is exactly the same as that used in the construction of the 7-litre Cobra, which is also built at the AC Factory, Thames Ditton, and shipped to Shelby American in Los Angeles. Both cars owe their origin to the Mk I Cobra, which for two years running was the winner of the coveted and highly disputed Manufacturers Championship competing with the fastest Works sports car teams from both sides of the Atlantic."

   Did AC ever make a Mk III Cobra in the Hurlock era? Not according to any authoritative source. AC's Factory Ledger does, however, record the sale of a 'Cobra chassis....Not made up'. This was used to build a 5.4 litre car which was advertised in November 1970 Autosport as a 'Mk III AC Cobra'. Could it be that this one vehicle stands between the Mk II & the Mk IV? Only a few more separate the Mk IV from the Mk VI.

[Laurence Kent]

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

[rstainer]

Laurence,
   
   The use you refer to is widespread but is, as Dan and I point out, contrary to the terms used by Shelby American and AC in period. The AC period terms are Mk I for the leaf spring Cobra (260 & 289) and Mk II for the coil spring Cobra (427 & 289), corresponding to Shelby American's short-lived Cobra I and Cobra II terminology.
   
   This period usage is clear, unambiguous, consistent and in accordance with all known historical documentation and there doesn't seem much point in changing it down the road.
   
   RS

[riverside]

Thank you both Robin and Dan. That's exactly how I wanted it stated.
   Hope you all have a safe and merry Christmas season.
   Ross

[aaron]

I always thought that the term "Slabside" referred to the 289 road cars ?

[A-Snake]

quote:Originally posted by aaron
   
I always thought that the term "Slabside" referred to the 289 road cars ?
   

   Arron, you're correct in that the current 'slang' term is meant to refer to a street 289 with standard fender flares. I prefer using 'street 289'.

[rr64]

There is nothing even remotely 'slab' like on any thing that I have seen produced by AC in its many decades of production. Specially for day one stock Cobras there is not a flat surface on them anywhere. The shapes of Cobras are complex combinations of adjacent compound curves.
   
   http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slab
   
   Whoever applied the new descriptor the very first time must have had very poor eye sight including horrible depth perception.

[rr64]

I will point out that more than just a few "race" Cobras never had their wheel arches modified from the way AC Cars sent them out. A friend has a car that was raced 1963-69 with the narrow stock wire wheels and stock wheel arches.
   
   Conversely more than a few Cobras got all kinds of modified "wings" and never became full time 'race cars', at least not before vintage racing developed in the 1970s and later.  (Yes know that there were cars that were driven daily and raced occasionally on weekends from day one. If you call every Cobra that raced even just once a 'race car' there might be only a few that were what we could call a pure "street car".)
   
   Also note worthy is that certain cars have gone from the way AC produced them to ones with wheel arches highly modified and subsequently changed back to a closer to stock set of shapes. A few cars have been changed several times.  The way any given car is today might not have been the way it was long ago or even months ago.  If the name Cobra was good enough world wide when the cars were new then that is good enough for me. (In the southeastern U.S.A. I most often heard them called "AC Cobra" until the late 1970s.)
   
   The modern slang terms, most all of them, are rather poor ways to pay respect to the cars, the people that built them, and the people that owned and or raced them when they were new cars.

[rstainer]

Ross's original and very interesting question is whether the 'slabside' term originated in America or England, Dan suggesting that it first applied to cobra-style cars 'in the 1990s when the American based replica builders, owners, and their fans started using the term in their slang'.
   
   I think Dan's right in relation to cobras. But where did the term ' slabside' originate? The easy-to-get records suggest the following:
   
   Earliest Trade Use
   US, 19th century: outer sawn lumber cuts.
   
   Earliest General Use
   US, early 20th century: in 1911 the US army changed its standard-issue pistol from the Colt .45" cylinder revolver to the flat-sided Colt .45" semi-automatic (the M1911A1, in US military use for 74 years). This was often called a slabside.
   
   Earliest Automotive Use
   US, mid 20th century: a body style.
   
   Earliest 'Cobra' Use
   US, late 20th century: I didn't find anything earlier than Dan's '1990s when the American based replica builders, owners, and their fans started using the term in their slang'.
   
   This suggests that slabside's origins are very firmly in the United States.
   
   Do Mk I Cobra (Cobra I) Owners Consider Them 'Slabsides'?
   Ross hears many owners of originals take exception to the 'S' word? Dan suggests why: "There is nothing even remotely 'slab' like on anything that I have seen produced by AC in its many decades of production. Specially for day one stock Cobras there is not a flat surface on them anywhere. The shapes of Cobras are complex combinations of adjacent compound curves."
   
   Calling Mila Kunis and Nicole Kidman 'slabsides' would reveal more about the observer than the observed. Let's leave the 'S' word to the much more broadly-based replica contingent, where it refers the exception, not the norm.

[A-Snake]

quote:Originally posted by rstainer
   

   Calling Mila Kunis and Nicole Kidman 'slabsides' would reveal more about the observer than the observed. Let's leave the 'S' word to the much more broadly-based replica contingent, where it refers the exception, not the norm.
   
   
   

   
   +1 [^]

[SJ351]

I am quite sure the Thames Ditton factory DID use the MK111 designation in period. Some years ago I saw an original factory  drawing  that stated such as the model designation. It was part of the suspension as I recollect. Anecdotal evidence is not always reliable. Or it may have been the basis of a new model. Either way, it was there in black and white.

[ACOCArch]

quote:Originally posted by ACOCArch
   

Originally posted by SJ351
   
I am quite sure the Thames Ditton factory DID use the MK111 designation in period.

   
   I can confirm Robin's clear statement. From the original period factory records leaf spring Cobras were MkI and coil spring cars MkII. I have seen no record of the use of the designation MKIII in Thames Ditton production.
   
   I will now trespass deep into the Cobra Registrar's territory!
   
   For all coil-spring cars, in period the name 'AC' and the model designation 'Cobra' were strictly kept apart in the public domain. Consistent evidence of this can be found in period adverts and the owners' handbook.
   
   Therefore, it can reasonably be argued the coil-spring cars were either Shelby Cobra MkII or AC 289 Sports, and that there is no such car as a Thames Ditton made coil-spring AC Cobra or AC Cobra MkII.
   
   That being the case it can be further argued that the only AC Cobras ever made at Thames Ditton were all MkI leaf-spring cars.
   
   If you weren't confused before then you probably are by now!