Jürgen, the only issue you didn't managed well is, to explain to your wife that sometimes less will be more :-))
(applies to a MkIV Lightweight and sometimes to a bikini also, depending on who..........)
To be serious:
Looking to the fuzzy picture about the “Lightweight” issue, I believe that finally it really end up in collecting all bits and pieces of every single car.
In this light I think Alan (the registrar) is right with his position :
“………..the Lightweight, is a MkIV variant, a version based upon a basic format and which varied dependent upon the Country it was being sold into…………It still comes down to this, a low volume car manufacturer would sell what ever the customer wanted, as he had the ability to change the cars to meet any requirement/request, body-shape, colour, engine, trim.
For this reason alone, until the Club has photographs and details of every MkIV built, things will change.”
Last not least, it is mainly the interest of the current owners to provide such data and photos.
@ SJ351: " ...........I suspect that any car built after 1991 cannot possibly qualify (as a Lightweight)......"
The car in the beginning of this thread is build 1996 (by information of redline).
And here the next (one of 28 (!) manufactured :-)) ):
http://classifieds.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/ac/cobra-continuation/ac-cobra-lightweight-black/268680 .....or here with heater:
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C331247 .........or here, now one with sidepipes
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C245893 Found four for sale - there will be more if dig deeper.
Approx. 20% of the cars ever build are for sale?!?!
(Now I have to leave the discussion to sort the data and the photos of my MKIV-look-a-like)