Unless you’re a mega nerd, or hail from the days when everything was still in black and white, there’s a decent chance you’re not too familiar with the AC Ace. You’ll almost certainly be aware of the car it spawned, though: the Cobra, complete with either AC or Shelby badges, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re from.
Produced between 1953 and 1963, the Ace was the little straight-six roadster that the Cobra used as its base. Now, it’s back, courtesy of the modern-day incarnation of AC, which effectively builds continuation versions of the cars from the company’s heyday.
The new one looks just like the old one and uses the same design of steel tube-frame chassis, but that’s largely where the similarities end. That pretty bodywork is now made from carbon fibre, and the whole shebang weighs only around 1100kg.
The engine is that firm favourite of low-volume sports car makers, Ford’s EcoBoost turbo four-pot. Here, it’s in the same 2.3-litre guise as found in the current Focus ST and old Focus RS, and produces over 300bhp and around 277lb ft of torque.
Hooked to a six-speed manual gearbox, that makes the new Ace capable of 62mph in around 4.6 seconds. We’re also promised a specially-tuned exhaust to uncork a bit more four-pot rortiness from the engine.
New AC Ace and original AC Cobra
The work of the company’s new heritage division, AC Cars Classics, is much closer in spirit to the original than the recently unveiled Cobra GT, but with that proven new engine, it sounds like the best of both worlds to us.
That does, naturally, mean it ain’t cheap. £175,000 is the entry point for one of these, which would also buy you a whole lot of lightly-used supercar. Or a small two-bedroom house in northern England. But you can’t drive a small two-bedroom house in northern England, can you?
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