Antique & Classic Cars Blog

If you’re 40-ish or older, or someone who pays the slightest attention to the kit-car scene, you know what a Cobra is. Forty years on, the stats these Anglo-American hybrids (British AC Ace body with Ford V8 engine) put up are still impressive–like zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds (stats vary depending on testing publication) for the 427 version.

As rare as these cars are–only a few hundred were built–there is a subspecies within the 427 camp. Some were fitted not with the ferocious 427 side-oiler but with the 428 police intercepter, a less expensive, less powerful sibling–though of course still amply powerful for a small car like the Cobra.

In 1976, an Automobile Quarterly editor, writing in their book Great Cars & Grand Marques, said that he had never seen a 428 Cobra offered for sale. He wondered whether they all thought they had 427s or had swapped the 428s out.

The answer is that most of the owners did swap in 427s, so that only a handful of the 428 cars remain. Here’s one going in the book I’m working on on unrestored cars. :^)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 7:52 am and is filed under Car stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.