The AC Cobra will be reborn — bigger and more modern, AC Cars says

Somewhere up there, Carroll Shelby is smiling.

The unmistakable AC Cobra, the two-seat British-made roadster known to most Americans as the Shelby Cobra, is to be reborn next year with a V8 motor generating 645 horsepower and a new name: the AC Cobra GT Roadster — so says AC Cars, which claims to be Britain’s oldest (122 years) automaker, and says it's nearing the end of a three-year development phase on the car.

Though details are sparse, AC says the lightweight sports car will be fitted with a Ford 5.0 Coyote V8 with the option of a supercharged engine that produces 654 horsepower and 575 pound-feet of torque, sufficient to send it from 0 to 60 mph in around 3.6 seconds. It will be paired with either a six-speed manual gearbox or a 10-speed automatic.

With an extruded aluminum space frame chassis and hand-finished manufacturing process developed by Icona Design Group and Cecomp Spa in Italy, the Cobra GT roadster is the largest AC Cobra to date. The powertrain is housed in a redesigned body shell larger than that of the existing Cobra — 170 inches long (14 inches longer) with a wheelbase of 101 inches (11 inches longer). The car will weigh around 1,400 kilos (3,080 pounds).