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The Art of Engineering – Kirkham Motorsports Builds the Ultimate Cobra Roadster

By Paul Crowe

Kirkham Ultimate Roadster - Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster – Cobra built for Larry Ellison

Some cars have a timeless appeal, the AC Cobra seems to be one of those cars. Unfortunately, though some replicas and recreations are very well engineered, many kit cars and replicas have gone the route of cheap imitation rather than “cost is no object” ultimate engineering. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, commissioned Kirkham Motorsports to build the latter, an ultimate car.

Kirkham Ultimate Roadster - Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster – Cobra built for Larry Ellison

The result is a stunning aluminum one off roadster. A 2 1/2 year project from idea to completion and completely documented in a book, “The Art of Engineering.” They created the book, the same way they built the car:

The billet bound book is available on an extremely limited basis for $4,500 per copy. This is the ultimate hardcover book. To make the machined aluminum binding requires more than 35 pounds of aluminum plate and over 30 hours of CNC mill time for each book.

Here’s the sweet part, they also have it available as a free download! All of the content and photos are there for your appreciation to see what an incredible build this has been.

Yes, you will want to read this.

Link: Kirkham Motorsports via Instapundit

More photos below:

Kirkham Ultimate Roadster - Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster – Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster - Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster – Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster - Cobra built for Larry Ellison
Kirkham Ultimate Roadster – Cobra built for Larry Ellison

Posted on September 15, 2009 Filed Under: Classic Car, Race cars, Show Cars




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Comments

  1. chris kelch says

    January 12, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    Hello
    That is by far the ultimate COBRA! Great job and thanks for sharing. I would like to know how much the car weighs? I am building a cobra kit and hope to keep mine under 2000 lbs. THANKS!!!

  2. Frank Hunt says

    January 17, 2010 at 10:59 am

    What a work of art

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