Fire up the...Cobra

I ALREADY know what you're about to ask: is it a real one?

That's what people always ask if you're anywhere near one of the most iconic sports car shapes ever crafted, but I reckon this is much more appealing than other AC Cobras. This is muscle car motoring with a British Leyland twist!

The AC Cobra, first introduced in 1962, was one of the more enduring results of our special relationship with America; we sent them the AC Ace, and they beefed it up into a Ford V8 powered rocketship of a roadster. The hairy-chested originals are now worth millions and hugely sought after, but why worry when you get a rorty reinterpretation for a lot less?

Peel the skin away on the beautifully-crafted replica I've just driven and some of bits might seem more than familiar; the engine's still a V8, but it's actually Rover's 3.5 litre lump. As in the one you know and love from legions of Range Rovers and an entire generation of the swish saloons your dad used to drive. Even the transmission is lifted from Rover's SD1 Vitesse.

My dad still has an Eighties Range Rover and after years of being driven everywhere in them I reckon the sound it makes is actually music to the ears; okay, it's not exactly Lady Gaga in the pop stakes but it's still burbly and melodic to listen to, like Oasis on one of their earlier albums. The point is, I think as engines go the Rover V8 makes easily the nicest noise, and wrapping it in something as gorgeously glamourous as a Cobra with a sports exhaust is like playing your favourite CD in a Bang and Olufsen stereo. Sublime, in other words.

Even in my brief, ten minute blast I could tell the car's a charmer, and not just because of the wonderly woofly noise it makes. I'm used to driver's cars being light, twinkletoed things that dart from corner to corner, but the Cobra was loud in a laid-back way, as if its creators have somehow found a way of reviving Barry White as a car. People say the original Cobra's a scary thing to handle, but with a British Leyland twist it's like hanging out with an old mate, only one who's been given a megaphone.

So no, this blend of Sixties style with Engineering isn't a real Cobra. It's much better than that.