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.