It appears that the sudden competition-based fame of the Shelby AC Cobra surprised management at Ford as much as their counterparts at tiny AC Cars*, though Shelby himself seemed unfazed by success. The showroom success of the Cobra was limited by the capacity of AC in Thames Ditton to hand-hammer the alloy bodies, and by the fact that relatively few Ford dealers in the US ever got (or even signed up for) cars to sell. Just as the new, computer-designed, coil-sprung chassis for the upcoming 427 was about to appear, Ford commissioned Ghia to design a more production-friendly body for the car, and it appeared in 1965…
The roadster's body design has been credited by some to Giorgetto Giugiaro, but he has never claimed it, and did not officially start his career at Ghia until very late in 1965, after the lines of the car had likely been laid down. Certain details, like the overly-vertical windshield and the somewhat unresolved headlight scoops, would seem to be more the result of Ford's program than Giugiaro's inspiration. In any case, after making a round of auto show appearances, the Ghia Cobra disappeared.
In 1965, the year the first coil-sprung 427 Cobras appeared, AC Cars showed a luxury GT car based on the new chassis design, but powered by the somewhat tamer, longer-stroke 428 version of Ford's big block, with body styled and built by Pietro Frua in Italy. Both a coupe and convertible started limited production in that same year. Wheelbase was 5 inches longer than the Cobra at 95 inches. The form and details, especially the tall, curved glazing and the shape of the rear fenders, resembled the Maserati Mistral, also by Frua. At the front, only the continually rising fender line, peaking at the headlights, seemed a little awkward...
So did the narrow sliver of window that split the fastback coupe's B-pillar into two pieces. Overall, though, the form was clean and modern, and contemporary tests praised the car's performance. The capacity of Frua's shop to produce and trim body shells, along with high price (almost 25% more than an Aston DB6) limited total production to only 81 cars by the time production ended in 1973.
Towards the end of production AC Chairman Derek Hurlock commissioned Frua to produce a remodel on the convertible with concealed headlights and a tidier, more tapered front fender line. Changes in US regulations in 1967 that ended sales of the Cobra would have made it difficult to import the 428. So AC produced around 30 of the coil-sprung Cobra roadster with small block engine substituted for the 427, and this AC 289 Sports was available until late '69 in the UK and Europe. Then AC started looking for a more modern car to produce while winding down production of the 428.
Perhaps because the small company lacked a well-financed engineering development operation, they tried to repeat the success they'd had in purchasing John Tojeiro's prototype in the early 50s, a car they'd transformed into the Ace, and which Shelby had made into the Cobra. So they bought the rights to a prototype call called the Diablo at the London Racing Car Show in 1972. The design, by ex-Lola engineers Peter Bohanna and Robin Stables, featured a transverse, mid-mounted Austin Maxi engine and transaxle. Whatever the merits of the compact drivetrain mounting, the body, with its maze of unrelated embossed blisters, lines and scoops, indicated that Bohanna and Stables were engineers first and industrial designers second...
And unlike AC's experience with the Tojeiro / Ace / Cobra, their luck did not hold with this new car. British Leyland decided not to sell them Maxi power plants, and in moving back to a more reliable supplier (Ford) for the 3 liter Essex V6, the small AC engineering team found they needed to create a new transmission. They mounted their new 5-speed transmission below the transverse engine, using a roller chain drive from the clutch. They also spent time revising the chassis design to meet new crash standards in their home market. By the time they had the first customer cars ready in 1979 after an achingly long 6-year development process, the much slicker-looking Lotus Esprit had appeared, and taken over what turned out to be a limited market for expensive, lightweight fiberglass mid-engined two-seaters...
The next year, though, Ghia got another chance to design an AC two-seater through the agency of Bob Lutz and and Karl Ludvigsen. Ford of Europe's Chairman and V.P. then met with Filippo Sapino at Ghia and discussed the goal of reviving the idea of a mid-engine GT like the DeTomaso Pantera, which had also been a Ghia project. Ludvigsen, involved with Ford's rally effort, remembered that Ford was then supplying V6 engines to AC for their 3000ME. He was thinking Ford needed something more like the Lancia Stratos he was then driving, to keep Ford competitive. It's interesting that the Chaimran of Ford Europe needed reminding about AC's new car, but then scores of engines, or even the hundreds of engines Ford sold to Shelby and AC during the Cobra period, are not a lot to a company like Ford. AC supplied one complete 3000ME to Ghia, and one bare powered chassis, and Ghia came up with the cohesive, aerodynamic coupe shown above. When it hit the car shows in 1981 as the AC Ghia, it generated a great deal of speculation about potential as a production sports car that could also serve as a platform for a potential rally champion, much as the Lancia Stratos had done. The coupe was steel-bodied, but production cars, if there had been any, would have likely been done in aluminum or fiberglass. Ford's studies of AC's production facilities indicated they would have been strained to produce a thousand cars a year, and Ford was unwilling to take on the expense of tooling up for this promising car in the middle of a recession. The two show cars were completed, however, and the second one, a four door sedan on a stretched version of the 3000ME chassis, was even more startling than the first...
The Ghia Quicksilver which bowed on the show circuit in 1982 bore no resemblance to anything ever offered by either AC or Ford. WIth its flush glazing, integrated airfoil spoiler and upturned rear fenders with skirted wheels and flush wheel covers, it called to mind some secret Citroen project...
Keep in mind this was 4 years before Ford produced the Sierra Cosworth rally cars, nearly 4 years before the first aero-styled Taurus and 7 years before the Taurus SHO. The Quicksilver would not have seemed so wild in the context of those products. But Ford clearly had no idea where this car might have fit into their product line, so little idea that they displayed the car under a Lincoln nameplate in the USA. As for AC, they shifted production of the 3000ME in 1984 to a firm named AC Scotland, which produced about 30 more cars before bankruptcy, and in the same year licensed production of the Cobra roadster (though not the name; Ford owned that) as the AC Mark IV to the Autokraft firm of Brian Angliss. About 480 AC Mark IV roadsters were built, nearly five times as many cars as the total production of the 3000ME, and perhaps proof that the Cobra was AC's last and best act.
*Footnote: This is Part 4 of a series. The other posts include "AC Cars Part 3: The Shelby AC Cobra" from 1/9/17, "Forgotten Classics—AC Part 2: There Was Life Before the Cobra",
from 12/25/16, and the first piece, "Happy Accidents with Bristol Power: AC Ace & Aceca", from 12/24/16. For those interested in Pete Brock, the designer of the Cobra Daytona Coupe, there is "Unsung Genius: Pete Brock, Car Designer" from 1/16/17.
Photo credits:
Top: wheelsage.org
2nd: thegentlemanracer.com
3rd: wikimedia
4th: mecum.com
5th: youtube.com
6th: oppositelock.kinja.com
7th & 8th: acownersclub.uk
9th: Ford Motor Company, reprinted on carstyling.ru
10th: gearheads.org
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