AC has unveiled the Ford V8 AC Cobra Coupe, a 799bhp fixed-roof two-seater priced at £399,000 and slated to enter production next year. The new car is AC’s most ambitious road model in years, and the company wants it to mark a shift from a small hand-built maker into a far larger business.
Alan Lubinsky said the Coupé is the firm’s first volume model, with annual output intended to rise from around 100 hand-built cars a year to more than 1000. The company also plans to sell it in markets including the United States and the Middle East, with American cars wearing the GT Coupé name because of licensing issues.
Under the skin, the Coupé is a closed-roof version of the 2024 Cobra Roadster and shares 75% of its parts with that car. It uses a Ford-sourced 5.0-litre V8 in several states of tune, from 450bhp naturally aspirated to 720bhp supercharged, while the Clubsport Edition raises output to 799bhp and is limited to 99 units. Power goes to the rear wheels through either a Tremec six-speed manual or a 10-speed automatic gearbox.
AC is pitching the car as more than a nostalgia piece. It sits on an aluminium chassis with a fully carbonfibre body, both built in-house, and the company says the bodywork behind the front wings is bespoke to the Coupé. The car was inspired by the one-off fixed-head AC Cobra A98 created for the 1964 Le Mans 24 Hours, and engineering chief Jon Peeke-Vout said the design had to be kept to a width of 1.98m so it could be sold as a road car in different regions around the world.
That ambition comes with a catch. AC says the current prototype is still not finished, even as it talks about a global volume future, and deliveries are not due until 2028. Production is expected to start next year only after current Roadster orders have been fulfilled, and the new UK plant is set to build both models, with the Coupé making up most of the output. The question now is how quickly AC can turn a 125-year-old badge and a six-figure sports car into a much larger operation without losing the hand-built character that made it matter in the first place.
