Parts and specialists

No listing on this page is paid for. Nobody has asked to be included. This archive sells nothing and takes nothing from anyone named here.

The honest position on parts

An Aceca is three cars in parts terms. The body, chassis and trim are AC's own and effectively unobtainable except by fabrication. The engine is one of three, and each has a different supply position. And a surprising amount of what is underneath, the brakes, the electrics, the carburettors, the overdrive, came from suppliers who served the whole British industry and whose parts are still made. Owners waste money looking for AC parts that were never AC parts. The last section of this page is probably the most useful one here.

The AC two litre six

This is the engine most people expect to be hopeless, and it is the one with the clearest answer. The AC 1991cc six is a design dating to 1919 and it was still being fitted in the early 1960s, which is a remarkable span and part of why the Aceca is what it is.

AC6, run by Rod Briggs in Somerset, is a business devoted solely to this engine. It rebuilds vintage, PVT and post war units, including complete overhauls of engines described as mechanical wrecks, and it supplies the majority of the spares: cylinder blocks, sumps, heads, crankshaft and piston assemblies, cylinder head components, water pumps, electrical and ignition parts, and splined hubs for PVT cars. It has announced a holding of original unused AC cylinder blocks. Its published process covers chemical cleaning, crack testing of blocks, cranks, rods and heads, crank grinding and white metalling, re-boring and full rotating assembly balancing. The site names the Ace, Aceca and Greyhound directly.

Website ac-6.co.uk, telephone 01458 273476. The archive has not been able to date any recent activity on that site, so telephone before relying on it.

The Bristol 100D2

Aceca-Bristols are better served than AC engined cars, because the Bristol two litre six went into Frazer Nashes, Arnolt-Bristols and Bristol's own cars, and it has two owners' organisations behind it.

The Bristol Owners and Drivers Association runs Pegasus Classic Parts Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary, with profits going back to the association, and its parts list centres on the two litre engines. Ordering and technical advice require BODA membership. The association also publishes, free and to anyone, exploded diagrams and jetting charts for the Solex 32BI carburettor, which is directly useful because the 100D2 runs three Solex downdraughts.

For engine work, INRacing of Nottingham are listed by both Bristol clubs as producing new Bristol cylinder heads and complete engines, and name AC among the marques they handle. Jim Stokes Workshops of Waterlooville built the Bristol two litre for the restoration of Donald Campbell's own AC Aceca, which is as model specific a credential as exists. Charlie Russell in Wiltshire is a single handed Bristol servicing and restoration specialist listed by both clubs. Spencer Lane-Jones of Warminster and Coleman Classic Cars of Maidenhead are also club listed, the latter founded by a man who spent nearly thirty years inside Bristol Cars, although their published work is on the later V8 models rather than the two litre.

Classic Bristol Car Parts Company, run by a former Bristol Cars parts manager, holds warehouse stock, though what the archive could see listed was V8 era rather than two litre.

The Ruddspeed 2.6

Only eight Acecas had the Ford Zephyr 2.6 in Ruddspeed form, which makes them the rarest variant and, paradoxically, the easiest to feed, because the base engine is a mass produced Ford. The Ford Mk11 Consul Zephyr Zodiac Owners Club runs a spares operation covering body panels, rubbers, mechanical parts and chrome. What is not available off the shelf is the Ruddspeed conversion hardware itself.

Ruddspeed, revived and based at Brooklands, maintains a registry of Ruddspeed modified vehicles and is actively asking owners for histories and photographs. With eight cars in question, that register is worth contacting whether or not you need anything.

Bodywork, tooling and restoration

AC Heritage at Brooklands is the most significant name on this page. It holds full catalogue factory drawings and manufactures parts on original tooling from AC at Thames Ditton and from Autokraft. It restores AC cars body off, including chassis and bodywork, and handles historical authentication and FIA paperwork. It is part of a group that also sells cars, which this archive would normally leave out, but the tooling and the drawings are a fact about the survival of the marque and there is nothing else like it.

Elsewhere, Redline Engineering of Ottershaw completed a full nut and bolt restoration of a 1958 AC Ace in 2016. Kevin Kay Restorations in Redding, California, names AC among its marques, shows an Aceca in its project galleries, and was one of two firms named by an auction house on a documented Ace-Bristol restoration.

One name is worth passing on without a listing. Rock Creek Coach in Oregon, run by Shawn Bowlby, is credited in trade press with more than twenty AC restorations and a specialism in aluminium body repair. The archive could find no website, no contact details and no way to confirm the business is still operating. On the evidence he may be among the most experienced people alive on AC aluminium, which makes the absence of anything verifiable frustrating rather than dismissible. Ask the club.

Trim and interior

Rightway Heritage Trimming in Victoria, British Columbia, reproduces seat covers, panels, carpets and interior trim from original patterns and has documented full interiors for a 1958 Aceca and a 1961 Ace, supplied as kits to restorers elsewhere. Classic Dashboards, Simon Lorkin trading as Classic Dashboards at Montbray in Normandy, France, established there in 2005 after thirteen years in Surrey, has a published AC Aceca job covering book matched veneer on the dash and concave door cappings re-veneered so the veneer sits properly into the dish. There is a UK telephone number, +44 (0)1483 203767, as well as a French one. Parts have to be removed from the car and sent to him; he does not visit cars, and he quotes from emailed photographs. Owners on the AC Owners' Club forum recommended him in 2026.

The parts that were never AC parts

This is where most owners save the most time. A great deal of what is underneath an Aceca was bought in from suppliers who served the entire British motor industry, and much of it is still manufactured or remanufactured for a general classic market at ordinary prices.

Searchable directory

The same firms, in a list you can search by name or by what they supply. It is kept up to date separately from the writing above, so it is the quicker way to find who holds a particular part.

A warning about search results

Searching for AC Aceca parts turns up a cluster of sites that appear to stock them and do not. Automated catalogue sites generate a page for every model in a database, including cars they have never held a part for, and at least one directory that presents itself as an AC specialist is an affiliate link farm with no stock, no named operator and no contact details. If a site offers AC Aceca parts but has no telephone number, no address and no named person, it has nothing. The genuine suppliers on this page are small, most of them answer the telephone, and several have no shopping basket at all.

What the archive could not establish

No ash frame or coachbuilding specialist with documented AC Ace or Aceca work could be identified, beyond AC Heritage doing it in house. The same is true of tubular chassis repair. Several firms plainly have the skills and none of them publishes AC evidence, so this is a gap in the available information rather than a gap in the searching. Currency could not be dated for AC6, AC Heritage or INRacing, all of which have undated or older sites. Nothing here should be treated as a recommendation of quality: the archive has not used any of these firms and is reporting who exists, not who is good.

Corrections and additions

If a firm here has closed, changed hands or been described wrongly, or if you know of a specialist who should be on this page, please get in touch. See also clubs, registers and your car's history, the buying guide, the registry and the how-to index.