1985 AC Mk IV Cobra ....AutoKraft (not shelby)

1985 Shelby Cobra Description

AK1125 arrived in the US in June of 1985 via FedEx Air Freight and was delivered to Woltz & Wind Ford in Heidelberg, Pennsylvania . This was the first car to be shipped to the US and was the certified prototype, a fact that was verified by Dennis Turk in a phone conversation with Grahame Robinson(production manager for AC AutoKraft in 1998). This car was the only one shipped to the US in Black with Ferrari red stripes and the only model shipped to the US with a single exhaust system. AK 1125 was stored by Woltz & Wind for 11 years and first sold in 1996 to Tord Smedberg of Detroit Mi. The car hand never been licensed or titled and when Tord purchased the car it had 35 miles on it. Tord drove the car to 1103 miles when personal issues forced the sale of the car. Dennis Turk purchased the car from Tord Smedborge in August of 1998. The car was again picked up by Ken Gold of Gold Rush auto transport for the trip to Oregon.

The car ran to approximately 2000 miles with the original engine. In 1999 the original engine and transmission were removed and a special Ford 302(see engine detail sheet) built by Dennis Turk was installed along with a Tremec 3550 five speed transmission which replaced the Ford T-5 gear box. The rear transmission mount was modified to fit the new transmission and also to allow the transmission to be removed from the bottom of the car as the original had to be removed from the inside of the car after removing the seats carpet and center console. One other modification was the installation of a Roll bar so the car could participate in open track events. Steve’s Restoration of Gresham Oregon installed the roll bar. The roll bar meets then current NHRA specifications. When the car was purchased from Tord Smedborg he had installed a clutch peddle extension as he was rather short. So am I so it was left in place. No other modifications have been made to the car.

Later in 1999 on a trip in the cobra to view a new 2000 Lightning pickup a small disaster struck. A Coyote darted across the Hwy and impacted the left headlight at appx. 60 MPH. This caused some mild damage to the aluminum fender and it was almost a year before the repairs to the car were trusted to Shown Bolby(Rock Creek Coach), a well known auto body repair person that worked out of his very large home shop. Shawn was a noted AC car repair person as AK1125 was the 24th AC car he worked on along with many other aluminum bodied cars. There was no metal replaced in the car only hand work was required to repair the damage. Also a new head light was acquired from AC in England as well as a couple of other small things Shawn needed to repair the car. As the car was now nearly 15 years old there were some small scratches and flaws in the paint. Small bubbles had appeared around the lower half of the body. This turned out to be the result of welding flux not being completely removed before the car was painted. So the decision was made to repaint the complete car. The car was viewed after the paint had been removed and this showed just how masterful the English body builders were. The car did not have any filler only primer under the top coat of paint the body was that good. There is a full set of photos documenting the work that Shawn performed on the car.

The original tires were replaced at 1500 miles. Most of the miles accumulated on the car have been on annual Cobra Tours here in Oregon. The car has been on the track two times. It has participated in a couple of open track events at Portland International raceway. The car is capable of close to 150 mph on the front straight at the Portland track. The car has always been stored in a very well insulated garage and there is no deterioration to the car what so ever.