AC Cars, originally incorporated as Auto Carriers Ltd., is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car makers founded in Britain. As a result of bad financial conditions over the years, the company was renamed or liquidated many times until its latest form. In 2022, the new corporate structure began the production of new AC Cobra models, with a slightly modified structure to adapt it to modern safety and technology requirements and obtain the European road homologation certificate.
History
The Weller brothers prototype The first car from the company that eventually became AC was presented at the Crystal Palace motor show in 1903; it was a 20 HP touring car and was displayed under the Weller name. The Weller brothers of West Norwood, London, planned to produce an advanced car.
However, their financial backer and business manager John Portwine, a butcher, thought the car would be too expensive to produce and encouraged Weller to design and produce a little delivery three-wheeler.
Autocars and Accessories In 1904, a new company was founded and named Autocars and Accessories; production started with the Auto-Carrier. The vehicle caught on quickly and was a financial success. Three years later, a passenger version appeared, called the A.C. Sociable. It had a seat in place of the cargo box.
The A.C. Sociable was described in a review of the 1912 Motor Cycle and Cycle Car Show as "one of the most popular cycle cars on the road, both for pleasure and business", and A.C. displayed eight vehicles on their stand, six for pleasure and two for business."The Motor Cycle and Cycle Car Show at Olympia", The Auto Motor Journal, 30 Nov 1912, p1448 The single rear wheel contained a two-speed hub, and the single-cylinder engine was mounted just in front of it, with rear chain drive.
Auto Carriers Ltd. The company became Auto Carriers Ltd. in 1911 and moved to Ferry Works, Thames Ditton, Surrey — at this time, they also began using the famed "AC" roundel logo. They continued to produce the commercial 3-wheeler tricars and the A.C. Sociable now frequently referred to in their adverts as the Mighty Atom. Their first four-wheeled car was produced in 1913; it was a sporty two-seater with a gearbox on the rear axle. Only a few were built before production was interrupted by the First World War. During the First World War, the Ferry Works factory produced shells and fuses for the war effort, although at least one vehicle was designed and built for the War Office.
At the end of the war, Auto Carriers started making motor vehicles again, designing and building many successful cars at Ferry Works, as well as expanding into an old balloon factory on Thames Ditton High Street. Shortly thereafter, John Weller started on the design of a new overhead-cam six-cylinder engine. The first versions of this design were running by 1919. The Weller engine would be produced until 1963.
In 1921, Selwyn Edge (who had previously been with Napier) bought shares in the company, and was subsequently appointed governing director. He did not get along with Weller or Portwine, who resigned less than a year later. In customary fashion, Edge sought publicity for the company through motoring competition.
In 1921 Sammy Davis joined A.C. as a driver, competing in the Junior Car Club race, for cars up to 1,500cc, at Brooklands.
AC Cars Ltd. In 1922, the name changed again to AC Cars Ltd. In 1923The Light Car and Cyclecar, 20 July 1923 "A.-C. MAKES FAST TIME"; The Autocar, 20 July 1923; Brighton & Hove Herald, 21 July 1923; Motor Sport, April 1955, Page 191: "Sprint Results of the Nineteen-Twenties" lists the overall winner on 14 July 1923, as J.A. Joyce (A.C.). The event was restricted to cars up to 1,500 c.c. and run as a knockout competition in six classes. J.A. Joyce won the top class for cars up to 1,500 c.c. of any type. No times were published. and 1924,The Motor, 9 September 1924, Page 250;The Light Car and Cyclecar, 12 September 1924, Page 486; The Autocar, 12 September 1924, Page 469; The Brooklands Gazette, October 1924, Page 168. J.A. Joyce won the Brighton Speed Trials driving an AC.The Brooklands Gazette, December 1924, Page 248 for a photograph of J.A. Joyce. In May 1924, at Montlhéry near Paris, T.G. Gillett broke the continuous 24-hour record in a 2-litre AC, fitted with special streamlined bodywork, covering a distance of 1,949.3 miles.Montlhéry: The Story of the Paris Autodrome, William Boddy, 2007, Page 26. In 1926, the Honourable Victor Bruce, an AC employee, won the Monte Carlo Rally in his 2-litre AC.The Illustrated Directory of Classic Cars, Graham Robson, Salamander Books, 2001. In 1927, Victor Bruce, with his wife Mildred (Mrs Victor Bruce), assisted by J.A. Joyce, set a 10-day endurance record at Montlhéry, driving an AC Six.Montlhéry: The Story of the Paris Autodrome, William Boddy, 2007, Pages 58-59. Nevertheless, the sales started to fall.
AC (Acedes) Ltd. Selwyn Edge bought the company outright for £135,000 in 1927 and re-registered it as AC (Acedes) Ltd., but sales, which had been falling, continued to decline. The company was caught by the crash of 1929 and went into voluntary liquidation.
Production ceased for a time, and the company was sold to the Hurlock family who ran a successful haulage business. They wanted the High Street factory only as a warehouse (Ferry Works was not acquired), but allowed the service side of AC to continue.
A single car was made for William Hurlock in 1930. He liked it and agreed to restart very limited production using components left over from previous models.
An agreement was reached with Standard to supply new chassis, the ancient three-speed transaxle was replaced by a modern four-speed gearbox (built in unit with the engine), and by 1932 a new range of cars was launched. Production continued on a small scale, averaging less than 100 vehicles per year, until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The final pre-war car was delivered in June 1940, after which the factory was fully involved with war production.
After the war, AC secured a large contract with the government to produce the fibreglass-bodied, single seat, Thundersley Invacar Type 57 invalid carriages with Villiers 2-stroke engines. The invalid carriages continued to be built until 1976 and were an important source of revenue for the company. Production restarted in 1947 with the 2-Litre, using the 1991 cc engine from the 16. The 2-Litre used an updated version of the pre-war, underslung chassis, fitted with the AC straight-six engine and traditional ash-framed and aluminium-panelled coachwork, available in saloon or convertible versions. They also built an aluminium-bodied three-wheeled microcar, the Petite,Casucci, Piero. "City Cars: The Answer to the World's Traffic Problems?", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Vol. 4, p.383. as well as "Bag Boy" golf carts (with independent suspension to the two wheels).Advert in "Country Life" 27 April 1951, page 1304.
In 1953, the firm began production of the AC Ace, based on a lightweight chassis designed by John Tojeiro and hand built aluminium body designed and built by Eric George Gray with the venerable Weller-designed 2-Litre engine.
For 1954, a new aluminium-bodied closed coupe was unveiled at Earls Court, the AC Aceca, pronounced A-seek-a. It was only slightly heavier than the convertible Ace, and because of better aerodynamics was also slightly faster ( top speed).
There was a demand from some customers for a larger four-seater car, for whom AC produced the Greyhound. This was built on a stretched Ace chassis with coil suspension all around and a 2.2-litre Bristol engine.
In September 1961, AC was approached by Carroll Shelby to use a small block Ford Windsor V8 engine in the Ace chassis, producing the AC Cobra. Shelby needed a car that could compete with the Chevrolet Corvette in US sports car racing. Only a single example was built (CSX 2000) using a Ford 221 Windsor V8. It debuted in 1962 with a Ford 260 V8 engine. This was then superseded by the Ford 289 V8 engine.
1964 Le Mans In 1964 the company decided that in addition to supplying Shelby's chassis orders they would enter a works Cobra (which had the chassis number A98) in that year's Le Mans 24 Hours race. They contracted Jack Sears to be one of the drivers. To test its stability and gearing at the speeds the car was expected to reach in the race's three mile Mulsanne Straight they decided to test it beforehand along the only available place that was long enough to reach its potential top speed. This was the northern end of the first section of the six lane M1 motorway which had no barriered central reservation and no speed limit. The use of the motorway for high speed testing was not unusual as Aston Martin, Jaguar and the Rootes Group had also used it.
After Sears had some food at the Blue Boar service station and waited beside it for no traffic to pass for several minutes, he set off at about 4:15 am on 11 June 1964. In top gear the car reached 6,500 rpm on its rev-counter (it had no speedometer) until the needle moved no more. Sears then slowed down and returned to the engineers. From the engine revolutions and after compensating for tyre growth, they calculated that the car had reached 185mph.
Within days, after a conversation in a Fleet Street bar, reports of the high speed run made the headlines in national newspapers. This led to the Ministry of Transport investigating, but no action was taken as no laws had been broken.
Nine days after the M1 test, the car participated in the 1964 Le Mans race with Sears and Peter Bolton sharing the driving. While being driven in the evening by Bolton the car had a rear tyre blowout, spun and was then hit by the Ferrari of Giancarlo Baghetti. Tragically the Cobra barrelled, speared off into the barriers and killed three young French spectators who were standing in a prohibited area. Baghetti was uninjured but Bolton was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The damaged Cobra was brought back from France and stored at the AC factory in Thames Ditton until in 1972 it came into the possession of collector Barrie Bird. Over many years he undertook a full rebuild, including fitting it with new body manufactured by Maurice Gomm, who had created the car's original body.
Development of a new chassis At the end of the 1964 racing season, the Cobra was being outclassed in sports car racing by Ferrari. Carroll Shelby decided he needed a bigger engine. A big block Ford FE series 390 V8 was installed in a Cobra but it was over-powered and the car was now almost undrivable. It was decided that a completely new chassis was needed. With the combined help of Ford's computers and the experience of the AC engineers, the new MKIII was born with main tubes instead of ones for the chassis, adding huge cross-braced shock towers and coil springs all around. In 1965 a competition version with a stripped interior, no glove box, different instrument layout and revised suspension was introduced. The competition version also had a more powerful motor with only one carburettor, side exhausts, a roll bar and wider fenders to accommodate racing tires. The engine that was installed in the car was Ford's famed 427 FE NASCAR "Side-Oiler" V8, a power-house engine developing in its mildest street version.
The car missed homologation for the 1965 season and was not raced by the Shelby team. However, it was raced successfully by many privateers and went on to win races all the way into the 1970s. At the end of 1966, Shelby was left with 31 unsold competition cars; it was decided by Shelby American to sell them to the general public under the name of Cobra 427 S/C or Semi-Competition. These S/C cars have become the most sought after models and can sell in excess of 1.5 million dollars.