AC Cars History: From a Thames Ditton Tricar to the Cobra and Beyond

AC Cars at a glance

Founding: the Weller brothers and the Autocarrier

The company began in 1901, when the Weller brothers set up in West Norwood, south London. In 1903 they showed a 20 hp touring car under the Weller name at the Crystal Palace motor show. The car was too expensive to produce without money, which came from John Portwine, a wealthy butcher.

In 1904 the partners formed Autocars and Accessories and built the Autocarrier, a three-wheeled delivery vehicle with the load box at the front. A passenger version, the A.C. Sociable, followed in 1907. In 1911 the business became Auto Carriers Ltd, moved to Ferry Works at Thames Ditton in Surrey and adopted the AC roundel that the company still uses.

The Weller six and Selwyn Edge's racing years

AC built its first four-wheeled car, a light two-seater with a French Fivet engine, in 1913; production was soon interrupted by the First World War. Around 1919 John Weller's overhead-camshaft six-cylinder engine ran for the first time. Made of light alloy, it stayed in production in developed form until 1963, a run of more than 40 years.

In 1921 the racing driver and businessman Selwyn Edge bought shares and became governing director; Weller and Portwine left within a year. The company was renamed AC Cars Ltd in 1922. That year, J. A. Joyce drove an AC at Brooklands to become the first light car to cover 100 miles in one hour. In 1926 the Hon. Victor Bruce, an AC employee, won the Monte Carlo Rally in a two-litre six-cylinder AC.

Edge bought the company outright in 1927 for 135,000 pounds and renamed it AC (Acedes) Ltd. The Wall Street crash ended that plan: in 1929 the firm went into voluntary liquidation.

The Hurlock family takes over (1930–1950s)

In 1930 the Hurlock family bought AC, at first mainly for the factory. Small-scale car production restarted with leftover parts, and from 1932 an agreement to use Standard chassis led to a new range with a four-speed gearbox. The last pre-war car was delivered in June 1940.

After the war, AC built the 2-Litre saloon from 1947 to 1958, about 1,284 cars. It also made very different products: trains for the Southend Pier Railway from 1949, and the Petite, a small three-wheeler, of which about 4,000 were built between 1952 and 1958.

The AC Ace, Aceca and Greyhound

The car that changed AC's reputation was the Ace of 1953. It used a ladder chassis designed by John Tojeiro for his sports racers, an aluminium body by Eric George Gray, and at first the old Weller two-litre six. The body panels were hand-formed and mounted on a tubular steel frame.

From 1956 the Ace and its coupé sister, the Aceca, could be ordered with a Bristol six-cylinder engine. That unit was derived from the pre-war BMW 328 engine, which explains the old 1cars text's reference to a German engine. By our count, the Ace, Aceca and Greyhound together came to about 1,129 cars. Production figures:

The Ace was successful in club racing and at Le Mans, but by 1961 Bristol was about to stop building its six-cylinder engine, and AC needed a replacement.

Carroll Shelby and the AC Cobra

In September 1961 Carroll Shelby, a Texan racing driver who had won Le Mans in 1959, asked AC to fit an American V8 into the Ace chassis. Ford was looking for an answer to the Chevrolet Corvette and supplied its new small-block engine. AC strengthened the chassis and rear axle, and the first Cobras appeared in 1962.

Bodies and chassis were built at Thames Ditton and shipped to Shelby in Los Angeles, where engines and gearboxes were fitted. The first 75 cars used Ford's 4.2-litre 260 V8; the next 571 had the 4.7-litre 289, about 12 % more displacement by our calculation. The Cobra was lighter and faster than the Corvette, and in June 1964 the works driver Jack Sears was timed at an estimated 185 mph (298 km/h) on the M1 motorway during a test, before Britain introduced its national speed limit. More on the car itself is on our Shelby Cobra page and in the biography of Carroll Shelby.

Cobra-based cars took the FIA's world championship for GT manufacturers in 1965. The same year AC introduced the Mk III with a new coil-spring chassis and the 7.0-litre Ford 427 V8. Sales were disappointing: 306 of the 427 and 428 versions were built in 1965 and 1966, and Shelby sold 31 unsold competition cars to the public as the 427 S/C.

Grand tourers and the 3000ME

The AC 428 was a more civilised car. Built from 1965 to 1973 on a lengthened Cobra chassis, it had a steel body styled by Frua in Italy and a 7.0-litre Ford 428 V8 good for about 140 mph (225 km/h). Sources give about 80 or 81 cars: 29 convertibles and 51 coupés.

In 1972 Derek Hurlock looked for a smaller car. The Diablo prototype, built by Peter Bohanna and Robin Stables, became the mid-engined AC ME3000, shown at the London Motor Show in 1973 with a Ford Essex V6. New crash rules delayed it: after a chassis redesign it passed the 30 mph barrier test in 1976, and deliveries of the 3000ME began only in 1979. Sources disagree on production, between 71 and about 101 cars by 1985.

Autokraft, Ford and the 1980s and 1990s

In 1982 Brian Angliss, whose company Autokraft restored and built Cobra parts, created the MkIV, a new Cobra with a Ford V8, of which about 480 were built at Brooklands. Thames Ditton production ended in 1984, and a Scottish licensee in Hillington, Glasgow, built about 30 3000MEs before going into receivership in 1985.

In 1986 the Hurlock family sold AC after 56 years. Angliss obtained the AC name and formed a partnership with Ford, which he bought out in 1992; a new factory at Brooklands followed in 1988. Angliss introduced a new AC Ace at the London Motor Show in 1993, but only about 50 were built before receivers were called in in 1996.

Carroll Shelby, meanwhile, defended his rights to the "Cobra" name, and from the 1980s American companies built replica and continuation Cobras. The old 1cars text notes that most modern Cobra-style bodies are made from glass or carbon-fibre composites rather than aluminium.

AC since 1996: Lubinsky, Malta and Germany

In December 1996 Alan Lubinsky bought the company and continued production in Weybridge, Surrey, as AC Car Group. A smaller factory opened in Frimley in 2001 and moved to Guildford in 2004. Production then went to Hal Far, Malta, from 2005, and that factory closed in 2008. In 2004 Shelby and AC announced a licensed Shelby/AC Cobra, and the first cars reached dealers that July.

From 2010 a German company, AC Automotive in Straubenhardt, built cars under licence until it went into liquidation on 24 July 2023. The MkVI, with a GM-sourced V8, entered series production in July 2012, and the AC 378 GT Zagato was shown at Geneva the same year. In 2020 AC announced the Cobra Series 1 Electric, limited to 58 cars, and the 2.3-litre Cobra 140 Charter Edition. In May 2022 David Conza became chief executive and investor, with Lubinsky as chairman.

AC timeline

Collecting an AC today: legacy and provenance

AC's place in history rests on one idea: putting a big American V8 into a light British chassis. The Cobra influenced generations of sports cars and created a whole industry of replicas, which is why original Thames Ditton cars with documented chassis numbers command very high prices at auction. The earlier Ace and Aceca are valued as elegant, hand-built British sports cars in their own right.

For buyers of modern AC models, the main question is provenance: whether a car was built by AC itself, by a licensee or by a replica maker. Buy an original car only with documented chassis history and an expert inspection. To see how a light roadster with a big engine compares on paper, try the 1cars power-to-weight calculator or the comparison tool, and browse more historic sports cars in the 1cars classics section. The current range is on the AC Cars brand page.