Car Articles

AC Cars was established in 1907 and is the oldest British car manufacturer that is still producing cars today. The name of the car company is derived from the name of their first commercial three-wheeler - the Auto Carrier, which was designed and manufactured by John Weller.

In 1908, a new passenger version called the AC Sociable was introduced. The name came about because the passenger and drivers seat were side by side and not in tandem as many other three-wheelers were at the time. It was also the first time that the initials AC had been used.

During World War-I, AC continued to manufacture vehicles as well as shells and fuses. By 1919, they were back in full car production with 10bhp and 12bhp engines. These were later replaced by a six cylinder 16bhp model. For the next few years, AC turned to manufacturing of four-wheeled vehicles and did not produce another three-wheeler until 1953 with the AC Petite. The Petite was powered by a 346cc single cylinder two-stroke Villiers engine and had an aluminium body fastened to a light steel frame.

The all new Ace arrived in 1953, designed by John Tojerio. The Ace used the old 1991cc AC engine. The distinctive body was produced in aluminium and looked similar to contemporary Ferrari models and it would also form the basis for the legendary Cobra. The AC Cobra was produced during the 1960s and is perhaps one of the most iconic cars of all time, and this was thanks to Carroll Shelby asking AC Cars to build a car that would take a V8 engine. The first seventy-five Cobra Mark I (including the prototype) were fitted with the 260 engine (4.2L). The remaining fifty-one Mark I model were fitted with a larger version of the Windsor Ford engine, the 289 in (4.7L) V8.

By 1963, the leaf-spring Cobra was losing its supremacy in racing. Shelby tried fitting a larger Ford FE engine of 390 in. Ken Miles drove and raced the FE-powered Mark II and pronounced the car was virtually undrivable. A new chassis was developed and designated Mark III. Cobra Mark III production began on 1 January 1965; two prototypes had been sent to the United States in October 1964. Cars were sent to the US as unpainted rolling chassis, and they were finished in Shelby's workshop. Unfortunately, the Mark III missed homologation for the 1965 racing 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. Interestingly, thirty-one unsold competition cars were detuned and made road worthy and called S/C for semi competition. Today, these are the rarest and the most valuable models.

AC Cobras had an extensive racing career. Shelby wanted it to be a "Corvette Beater" and at nearly 500lb less than the Chevrolet Corvette, the lightweight car did just that. The Cobra was perhaps too successful as a performance car and reputedly contributed to the implementation of national speed limits in the United Kingdom. An AC Cobra Coupe was calculated to have done 298 km/h on the M1 motorway in 1964, driven by Jack Sears and Peter Bolton during shakedown tests prior to that year's Le Mans 24h race. However, government officials have cited the increasing accident death rate in the early 1960s as the principal motivation, with the exploits of the AC Cars team merely highlighting the risk.