Ac Cobra

The Ac cobra also known as Shelby Cobra in North America is an Anglo-American sports car that was produced during the 1960s. It is 2 door roadsters that see its production in 1961 till 1967 which produced a variant of the car series which is called the Mk series.

It is a Front Engine and rear wheel drive layout where engine is located at the front of the vehicle and driven wheels are located at the rear.

The AC Cobra uses one of the earliest kinds of chassis which is the Ladder chassis which the name comes from its construction that looks like a ladder with two longitudinal rails interconnected several lateral and cross braces. The longitude members are the main stress member. They deal with the load and also the longitudinal forces caused by acceleration and braking. The lateral cross members provide resistance to lateral forces and further increase torsional rigidity. Body mounts are usually integral outriggers from the main rails, and suspension points can be well or poorly integrated into the basic design. The original Shelby 289 Cobra used 3 inch round tubes, a very flexible design that worked with stiff transverse-leaf springs for adequate but primitive handling.

Because of its obsolete design the only advantage of this chassis is that it is easy and cheap for hand build. However because of it is a 2 dimensional structure, torsional rigidity is very much lower than other chassis especially when dealing with vertical load or bumps.