AC Cars

The company in brief

AC Cars traces its line to 1901, when the engineer John Weller and his financial backer John Portwine began building cars in south London. The firm they founded became Autocarriers Ltd in 1907, and it was the three-wheeled A.C. Sociable carrier, those initials, that gave the marque its name. From 1911 the works were at Thames Ditton in Surrey, where the cars this archive covers were later hand-built.

Weller's other legacy was mechanical. The two-litre overhead-camshaft alloy-block six he laid out in 1919 stayed in production, in continually revised form, until 1963, one of the longest production runs of any British engine, and the entry-level power unit of both the Ace and the Aceca. After a difficult 1920s the Hurlock brothers bought the company in 1930, and it was under their ownership that AC's best-known cars appeared.

The models

The archive covers the Thames Ditton sports cars of the 1950s and early 1960s in depth. Start here:

Timeline

1. 1901John Weller and butcher John Portwine begin building cars in West Norwood, London.
2. 1907The business is renamed Autocarriers Ltd, maker of the three-wheeled A.C. Sociable delivery carrier, the initials that became the marque.
3. 1911The company moves to the Thames Ditton works in Surrey that it would occupy for most of the century.
4. 1919Weller designs the 2-litre overhead-cam alloy six, an extraordinarily long-lived engine, still in production in the Ace and Aceca more than forty years later.
5. 1930After financial trouble, the Hurlock brothers, William and Charles, buy the company; AC returns to car building under their ownership.
6. 1947AC begins large-scale production of invalid carriages for the Ministry of Health, unglamorous work that underwrote the sports cars.
7. 1953The Ace appears, on John Tojeiro's tubular chassis with all-independent transverse-leaf suspension.
8. 1954The Aceca coupé follows, sharing the Ace's mechanical package under an aluminium fastback body.
9. 1956The Bristol two-litre six becomes available, the BMW 328-derived engine that transformed both cars.
10. 1959The Greyhound 2+2 is launched at Earls Court.
11. 1961Bristol engine supply ends; Ken Rudd's tuned Ford Zephyr six powers the 2.6 cars.
12. 1962Carroll Shelby has AC fit a Ford V8 to the Ace chassis: the AC Cobra.
13. 1963Ace, Aceca and Greyhound production ends as Thames Ditton turns to the Cobra.
14. 1965The Frua-bodied AC 428 arrives on a stretched Cobra 427 chassis; it runs to 1973.
15. 1979The mid-engined AC 3000ME reaches production, the last new AC of the Thames Ditton era.

The engines

Three power units define the period. AC's own Light Six, Weller's 1919 design, was smooth and characterful but ageing. The Bristol two-litre, descended from the pre-war BMW 328 via war reparations, brought cross-pushrod breathing, triple downdraught Solex carburettors and genuine performance. When Bristol stopped supplying engines, Ken Rudd's tuned Ford Zephyr 2.6 took over, and pointed the way to the V8 that followed.

Cobra, 428 and afterwards

The Cobra is the reason most people know the marque. It is, in substance, an Ace: Tojeiro's chassis strengthened and widened at Thames Ditton to take a Ford V8 from 1962, at Carroll Shelby's instigation. The Frua-bodied AC 428 of 1965–1973 used a stretched Cobra 427 chassis with Italian coachwork, and the mid-engined 3000ME of 1979–1984 was the last wholly new car of the old order. AC Cars exists today, building a modern reimagined Ace, a separate story from the classics here.

Where this archive goes deeper

The Aceca is the car this site documents in the most detail: its history, three variants, production numbers, chassis numbering and a public chassis register of surviving cars. For the roadster, see the AC Ace hub; for how the two compare, the Ace vs Aceca comparison.

Frequently asked questions