All good points....
Actually, for accuracy's sake:
Same tools? Not exactly. The AC's alloy body was then and is today hand formed using the traditional English wheel, dollys and slapping files. The Kirkham furnished CSX body is formed using a combination modern metal pressing techniques, then hand finished. Advantage? No, just ......different.
Same dimensions? Not exactly. The AC factory still owns and uses most of the original bucks from the 60's. The Kirkham furnished CSX body was formed off a pattern taken off CSX 3104, a wide hipped street car modified to S/C specs. Accurate nose dimensions could be suspect, as 3104 was involved in a front end collision and then repaired prior to the dimensions being taken. If you view the nose of a CSX glass car and a CSX alloy car, you will notice a slight difference, with the glass cars' intake being more elliptical, more symmetrical and truer to the original, unmolested cars coming out of AC in the 60's.
Different People? Hard to say without viewing AC's employment records, though entirely possible someone who worked on the cars 40 years ago is still there in some capacity. Safe to say that whomever is there now learned their wonderful craft from one of those old metal benders.
I agree with the general premise that without Shelby there would never have been a Cobra, but the same applies to AC Cars, don't you think?
Bud
