Highlights Stunning example of reborn Cobra 378 Sold and refurbished by AC Cars One previous owner and less than 1,200 miles from new Genuine COB chassis number GM LS3 V8 engine with 440bhp Overview A bankrupt chicken farmer from rural Texas isn’t the most obvious person to have had a major impact on the car industry, but then there’s never been anything conventional about an AC Cobra… Carroll Shelby was addicted to speed, and at weekends he used to race – Cadillac-Allards and Aston Martins for the most part.

But after being forced to retire from motorsport in 1960 at the age of 37, with a heart problem that would affect him for the rest of his life, Shelby focused instead on making cars go faster, forming the Shelby-American tuning company in 1961.

The rest, as they say, is history – he loved the AC Ace chassis, but not its six-cylinder Ford Zephyr engine.

Instead, Shelby explored ways of bringing AC and Ford V8 power together.

The Cobra was born.

It ran until 1968, and made a pa...