It TOOK ABOUT 4 years, more than $150,000, and nearly 7,000 hours of work, but now that it's done, Vito and Michelle Pace have a limousine like no other. It would be incorrect to call the 21-foot limo a "stretched" 1966 AC Cobra, because it's a replica from tip to tail. Since he sketched his vision in June of '89, the only thing that stretched was Vito Pace's imagination-and his patience. "When you build a car that's one of a kind, everything has to be machined," he says. "You can't go to the comer store and buy a part for this thing."

Aside from its length (the side pipes alone are nearly 13 feet long), there are a few subtle differences between the replica and the original: "The original Cobra engine is a 427, and it's more of a racing engine," Pace says. "I wanted this to be more 'streetable,' so I got a Ford 460. But I wanted to keep it as original looking as I could-the seats, the dash layout. It's very close, but the Cobras were race cars, so each driver had his set up in different ways."

Pace set up his dash with an Eclipse EQZ-303 cassette head unit. Isaac Goren, at Sounds Good Stereo & Security in Canoga Park, California, designed the system as the car was being built, a task that occasionally called for special measures. Goren had to build a custom data cable, for example, to link the head to a trunk-mounted Eclipse ESD-430 12-disc CD changer. "They just don't come that long," the installer notes.

A wet bar in the four-seat passenger compartment doubles as a rack for two crossovers and our amps, all from Lanzar. One Lanzar Opti-drive Plus 200 amp delivers 100 watts per channel to Lanzar MD-4 4-inch midranges and TWS I -inch tweeters. Two tweets are flush mounted in the dash, and a mid resides in each kick panel alongside an MWS-6.5 6-incher. Four more of each driver type are positioned in the sidepanels of the passenger compartment. All of the 6-inchers are driven by a second Opti-200. A third 200, operating in bridged mono, powers two Lanzar OA12-8 12-inch subwoofers, which sit between the front seat and the rear-facing passenger seat. The subs face the rear and fire through the passenger seat's backrest. The fourth Opti-200, also bridged, kicks four Lanzar LP8S-8 8-inch subs, which woof forward through the rear seat's backrest.

Though Pace drives the Cobra often, it is undeniably a show car. Goren knew his system would be called upon to play while the limo is parked, so Sounds Good designed a couple of failsafes into the electrical system, including a backup battery and a plug that lets Pace jack the system into an external power supply. A solenoid that's wired to the ignition isolates the main battery from the backup and the system when the engine is switched off, guarding the main's charge. A trunk-mounted circuit breaker provides an added measure of protection. "We drive the car everywhere," Goren says, "and we don't want to be embarrassed by needing a jump start."

DON'T EXPECT TO RENT this beauty for your bachelor party. I'd like to get it into movies or commercials," Vito Pace says. "I can definitely see it in a rock video. We're gonna use this thing somehow, some way."