The story of the AC Shelby Cobra sports car is both the stuff of automotive legends and a general tale of how two worlds collided to seemingly unite and create something marvelous – a nimble British roadster with a big, hulking Ford V8 heart.
On one hand, we have UK-based AC Cars, which during the early 1960s were in a conundrum about the next powerplant for their two-seat AC Ace roadster – as the dated Bristol straight-six mill was just being phased out by the engine company. Meanwhile, the one and only Carroll Shelby was on the lookout for a small and nimble car that could engulf a big American V8.
So, after AC agreed to build him such a ‘monster,’ he went in search of a suitable powerplant and found Blue Oval’s then-new 221ci (3.6-liter) Windsor V8 after Chevrolet refused him in fear of Corvette competition.
Production of the MkI (CSX/CS) AC Shelby Cobra started in 1962 and the idea of a very small two-seat sports car with a brash V8 fitted up front quickly took flight to make automotive history. In recent times, no less than 100 years since Carroll Shelby’s birth, the legend continues to thrive.
And AC Cars – now Britain’s oldest vehicle manufacturer, established 122 years ago in 1901 – is about ready to open a new chapter with the 654-horsepower Cobra GT roadster that is currently in the works and due for its official presentation sometime this spring. But what if the Cobra wanted to become something else in the near future?.
Well, most fans probably hope that the Shelby Cobra will forever remain a nimble sports car, even if the EV revolution means it has to adopt a zero-emission lifestyle – at least in the real world. But across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, just about anything else is possible, including the transformation of the AC Shelby Cobra into a hulking SUV coming from a dystopian, AI-enabled retrofuture.
No worries, the machines have not taken over (just yet) and instead, we are presented with the vision of the AI artist/pixel master tucked behind the flybyartist moniker on social media.
The AI CGI expert seems to have a passion for dreaming the times when retro-futuristic-designed AC Shelby Cobra SUVs will roam both city streets and the surrounding desert dunes, as this is not the first time he has imagined the small two-seat sports car morph into a much-bigger SUV.
As always, these AI-assisted designs are not exactly 100% accurate or even give out the vibe of something that was well thought-through. Still, some of the ideas are cooler than others, and chief among them is the hero shot of a teal and gold two-door Shelby Cobra SUV lurking around the historical front of a CGI town, followed closely by the dark-blue four-door off-roader!.
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Source: autoevolution.com
