AC has revealed the Cobra Coupé, a 799bhp fixed-roof Ford V8 sports car that will enter production next year and reach customers in 2028. The new model, priced at £399,000, marks the company’s latest move to turn its Cobra line into something far larger than a niche hand-built business.
The coupé was shown in an exclusive first look before its official unveiling on 29 May, and it keeps the same basic recipe as the 2024 Cobra Roadster while adding a closed roof and broader body. Under the bonnet is a Ford-sourced 5.0-litre V8, offered in 450bhp naturally aspirated form or with a supercharger for 720bhp, while the range-topping Clubsport Edition lifts output to 799bhp and is capped at 99 units.
That range is central to AC’s plan. The company says the coupé will be its first volume model and the car it uses to lift output from around 100 hand-built cars a year to more than 1000. Alan Lubinsky said it is the most exciting time for AC in the company’s history, and the new car is being aimed at markets that prefer fixed-roof models, especially the US and the Middle East.
Engineering chief Jon Peeke-Vout said the wider body was not a styling flourish but a regulatory necessity. At 1.98m across, the coupé is broader than earlier AC models, and he said making it smaller would have limited it to track-only use in most markets. He also said AC looked at replacing the V8 with a smaller engine, but, in his words, that’s not us.
The fixed-roof body sits on an aluminium chassis with a fully carbonfibre shell supplied by Sussex-based Green Tech Automotive, which AC recently bought to keep production and material costs down. AC says the bodywork behind the front wings is bespoke to the coupé, even though the car shares 75% of its parts with the Roadster. Inside, it carries over the same analogue dials, small digital touchscreen and three-spoke steering wheel.
There is still a catch in AC’s growth story. The Clubsport Edition is limited to 99 cars, which means the model meant to expand the brand’s volume still has a halo version built to scarce numbers. That sits alongside a broader production plan that will push work into a new UK plant, where AC says everything bar the chassis will be made and both the Coupé and Roadster will be assembled. Cars are currently 75%-finished in Germany before heading to the UK for completion.
The next milestone is straightforward. Production of the fixed-roof Cobra is due to start next year once current Roadster orders are cleared, and deliveries are scheduled for 2028. What AC has not yet said is how much the new UK plant will cost or exactly where it will be built, and that answer now matters almost as much as the car itself.
