Not Ranked
Many race cars in the fifties and sixties used round tubing in their construction including Ferrari, Maserati, AC (Shelby), Kurtis and Watson Indy cars and dozens of others. In the seventies, racers started using rectangular tubing because a crash usually limited the damage to a localized area (impact area). A round tube race car was usually trashed after a hard crash, whereas a car made from rectangular tubing had only to replace a front or rear clip, as is done even now with Nascar Cup and Modifieds. I think rectangular tubing was pioneered by Detriot auto makers for passenger cars in the twenties and thirties, and they were tanks.
Back to Kirkham, in my opinion they use 4 inch round tubing because it is as the originals were made by AC/Shelby, and thus are the more accurate replica. I'm not beating up on ANY Cobra here (no pun intended), as they all have their highlights.
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