The AC Mark 6 Sports Car

AC Mark 6 Cobra

from Classic to Modern

The AC Mark 6 sports car was introduced at the April 2009 Top Marques Car Show in Monaco as a two door, two seater convertible, while later prototypes were premiered at the Geneva Motor Show in both 2011 and 2012.

Externally, it looked very much like a Cobra, and was offered as both a convertible and a fixed head coupe.

The body consisted of an innovative hybrid combination of a fibreglass base with an aluminium overlay.

It was mounted on a space frame chassis containing tubular sections which increased its strength whilst, at the same time, keeping weight to a minimum and reducing production costs.

An important change in respect of the power plant was a switch from the Ford Windsor V8 engine in the original AC Cobra to one built by Chevrolet.

The Mark 6 was hand built, and available in five versions, using engines from the Corvette:

The standard GT used a 6.2 litre, GM V8 engine that developed 436 bhp, and with a top speed of 173 mph
The GTA used a 6.2 litre, GM V8 engine that developed 550 bhp, and with a top speed of 180 mph
The GTS used a 6.2 litre, supercharged GM V8 engine that developed 647 bhp, and with a top sped of 190 mph
The brutish GTS R used a 6.2 litre, GM V8 race tuned engine that developed 780 bhp, and with a top speed of 207 mph

The V8 engine was very flexible, and would pull away smoothly even from 1000 rpm, but it really came into its own between 40-100 mph.

Technical Data GT GTA Big Block GTS GTS R
Engine, cc 6162 6162        7200 6162 6162
Engine, cubic inch 375 375 438 375 375
Cylinders, bhp 8, 436 8, 550      8, 640 8, 647 8, 780
Top Speed mph 173 180 180 190 207
0-60 mph, secs 3.5 3.3 3.0 3.3 2.8
Torque ft/lbs 431       549 546 604 774
0-100 mph, secs 6.8 6.3 5.7 - -
Standing 1/4, secs 11.3      10.8 10.6 - -

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Priced at £93,500, the car featured:

Gullwing doors specific to the fixed head coupe
Wheelbase was increased to improve legroom
Adjustable shock absorbers
18 inch aluminium wheels on the basic, with 19 inch on the other variants
Six speed manual gearbox
Air conditioning
Heated leather seats
Pedals could be adjusted electrically
GPS and MP3 player

Side exhausts were an optional extra, as were racing stripes, traction control, and a detachable hardtop

It was fitted with 332 mm drilled and ventilated disc brakes at the front, and 298 mm at the rear, with callipers sourced from Porsche, together with limited slip differential.

The convertible variant weighed just 990 kg.

The Mark 6 represented a number of firsts for the company since it was:

First to be built in Germany
First to incorporate a V8 engine produced by General Motors
First to be offered as a fixed head coupe that had not been designed exclusively for the track
First to feature gullwing doors, which were an integral part of the fixed head coupe variant

The target market for the Mark 6 was the US and Europe.

Initially, from 2009, the AC Mark 6 sports car was built for AC Cars by Gullwing Gmbh in Germany, who were the licensee.

However, AC subsequently introduced a network of local production and distribution centres, which were intended to eliminate the US shipping costs incurred with the rolling chassis during the production of the original AC Cobra Mark 1-3.

Consequently, the three main centres chosen were AC Heritage Centre in the UK, AC Germany in Dresden, and Iconic Motors in the US.

Iconic Motors have subsequently developed the Iconic AC Roadster sports car, fitted with a 6.8 litre, V8 engine that developed 825 bhp, and 680 ft/lbs of torque, with a top speed of 210 mph, and a 0-60 mph time of less than 3 secs.