Exclusive: AC Cars begins new era with £400k Cobra Coupe supercar

An alternative option would have been to replace the V8 with a smaller engine, “but that’s not us”, said Peeke-Vout.

Despite the car’s more expansive size, he said, you can “see the heritage and where it has come” from, adding “there is no mistake that it is an AC Cobra”.

The car shown in these pictures is still a prototype and AC is targeting a weight of “under 1600kg” in the Coupé’s heaviest, supercharged state, said Peeke-Vout. The Roadster weighs up to 1500kg.

Volume ambitions

Lubinsky described the Coupé as the 125-year-old firm’s first “volume” model. The plan, he told Autocar, is to use it as a catalyst to take AC from around 100 hand-built cars a year currently to more than 1000. “This is the most exciting time for AC in its history,” he said.

The Coupé has been earmarked for this task because fixed-head models have greater appeal than convertibles in markets such as the US and the Middle East. The US, where the car will be called the GT Coupé due to licensing issues, accounts for around half of AC’s sales.

To achieve the planned increase in production, AC will open a new plant in the UK, although details of the facility have yet to be outlined.

Currently, cars are 75%-finished at AC’s German production plant before being sent to the UK for completion. For the new plant, the plan is for everything bar the chassis to be produced there.

Both the Coupé and the Roadster will be made at the new site, with the Coupé comprising the bulk of the builds. Production of the fixed-roof Cobra is slated to begin next year once current orders of the Roadster have been fulfilled. Deliveries will start in 2028.

After those cars, AC will launch more models – and, like the Cobra, they will come from AC’s back catalogue.

Peeke-Vout said: “The platform for the Roadster and Coupé lends itself to some of the other models that we could create again.”

Speaking about his ambition for the brand at the start of the next decade, CEO David Conza told Autocar: “There is a small line between a boutique like Chapelle and all the mainstream shops, like H&M, and I really wantto be between them.”

Classics

While the new models will be AC’s core business, its Classic range – made up of the Cobra Mk4 and incoming Ace – will continue and be used as a brand builder. “This is nice to do and it’s important we do it well, but it’s not going to keep the lights on,” said Peeke-Vout.