The car that left Thames Ditton
BE 232 was an ex-works development car. It spent the first year of its life registered to AC Cars of Thames Ditton, and it was fitted with a special lightweight aluminium body. That much of its early identity was already unusual before any private owner saw it.
The racing years
The car was raced in the ownership of its first two private owners, Geoff Wilson and a company named Premier Maintenance Service. During that period Wilson and Vic Hassall scored many wins and fastest laps at Goodwood, Mallory Park, Shelsley Walsh, Prescott and Chateau Impney, and the car took several podiums in period at the Chateau Impney hill climb. The venues and the drivers are named in the source; the individual dates and results are not.
Victor Yates
In August 1965 the car was bought by Victor Yates, who owned three ACs: an Aceca, a Greyhound, and this Ace Bristol. Yates noted a unique gearlever guard that stopped reverse being selected in error, and this was thought to be a works development modification for Le Mans. That it was thought so is recorded; that it was so is not established, and the distinction is worth keeping.
In time Yates could no longer use his cars. After he died, his widow Rosie initially felt too emotionally attached to them to let them go. About a year later she decided to sell, and Kevin Kivlochan was given first refusal on the Ace.
Forty years in a barn
The car had sat dormant in a barn for forty years. The old thick red paint, applied somewhat amateurishly by a previous owner, had protected the body underneath. It needed an engine rebuild, a new gearbox, new wire wheels, new suspension and a new handbrake assembly.
Kivlochan had wanted an AC Ace Bristol and had been looking for the right car for twelve years.
The restoration
The chassis tubes were good, but some of the smaller metal tubes at the front by the radiator had rotted and had to be replaced. Fitting the correct wheels with the right offset proved difficult without stretching the arches. The car was given anti-roll bars at both ends developed by the racing dynamicist Nigel Rees, and the period-style aluminium bucket seat was constructed by DK Engineering and trimmed in hide by RW Racing Services to match the passenger's.
The article records that the car cost him about £110,000. It also carried an estimate of what the car was worth in 2017, which the archive does not reproduce: a nine year old valuation is worse than none, and this archive does not publish current valuations.
The details worth keeping
The car carries a J-type overdrive on third and top gear. Its 6000rpm tachometer is redlined at 5500, with the engine built to 6200. And on the drilled aluminium spokes of the big wood-rim steering wheel there is dymo tape reading "60kph 2nd 3500rpm" and "80kph 3rd 3500rpm", so that the pit lane and safety car speed limits at Le Mans can be respected without doing sums. Of everything in the record of this car, those two strips of tape say the most about how it is used.
Kivlochan described the car as "20% historic race car and 80% road car", and said he fully intended to drive it into work on sunny days. That is as the car was described in 2017.
What is not established
This account rests on a single published source, and the archive would rather say so plainly than dress it up as more:
- The archive has not seen the car, its chassis plate or its history file, and has not independently verified any of the above.
- Whether the gearlever guard really was a works Le Mans modification. The source records it as what was thought, not as established fact.
- The car's ownership and condition since 2017.
- The exact dates and results of the period racing successes. The venues and the drivers are named in the source; individual results are not.
Why this car belongs on an Aceca archive
The Ace and the Aceca are the same car underneath, the Aceca being the closed version on the same chassis with the same Bristol engine. BE 232's record of works development work and period competition is part of the same story, and it is why this archive covers the Ace alongside the Aceca. The car is not added to the chassis registry, which covers Aceca variants only.
Sources
This page rests on a single published source: "Aced It", words by Ivan Ostroff, photography by Laurens Parsons, Classic Cars magazine, April 2017. The archive is grateful for that article. Photographs are reproduced with permission, and none of the article's prose is reused.
